*That's What The Cargo Doctor Has . . .

     A farewell party for Dr. Andreas Otto is being held in Wiesbaden on November 19, 2014, as he departs Lufthansa Cargo after having served as board member for product & sales.
     Dr. Otto has moved to the post of new Chief Commercial Officer of Austrian Airlines.
     Never one to back down from tough challenges, Andreas has served in several critical roles at Lufthansa Cargo for the past 14 years.

A Job For Superman

     Dr. Otto is brilliant, pragmatic, and very down to earth, but Austrian will be no walk in the park as the carrier—under severe short- to medium-haul market pressure—has lost money since 2007.
     However, AUA has strong market positions on its long-haul routes and is looking to grow this area of its business.
     Although the appointment “looks like a job for Superman,” Andreas, with his broad-based market knowledge and ever-positive outlook, is a hopeful choice for the ailing carrier.
     There are many ways to approach talking about Andreas Otto.
     During his years at Lufthansa Cargo he always seemed like a pretty cool customer—self assured, and always eager and ready to listen and engage in lively discussions.
     There is an air of excitement and expectation about Andreas Otto.
     Call it what you will, but when it comes to seeking new ideas and markets and getting the right people in position to do their best, Andreas has a pizzazz, an attractive combination of vitality and glamour.
     “Dr. Andreas Otto has been the flag bearer for LH cargo and helped us to overcome difficult situations numerous times,” says Jo Frigger, (left) CEO of EMO Trans.
     “It’s mainly thanks to him that LH is still one of our main carriers, and we wish him all the best and much success in his exciting new position with AUA.”
     Andreas Otto advances virtue ethics; with his considerate approach, he drives results on a case-by-case basis.
     While you are talking to him you can see him thinking about your words.
     Most often his comments in any group situation are expansive, looking for possibilities and always ready to carry things further.
     His regular encounters with the media were always arranged to be relaxing, informative, and even entertaining.
     One meeting might be at a cooking class, or while supping inside a medieval castle, or amongst the vineyards that dot the countryside around Frankfurt.
     But while it is all well and good to raise a toast and overspill with platitudes from our end, we think an even better measure of the man might be discovered in the unedited, upfront, and frank comments of some legendary folks at Lufthansa, including a freight forwarder customer who worked with Andreas throughout his career.

View From The Top

     Jürgen Siebenrock is vice-president-the Americas for Lufthansa.
     But similar to several other top executives at the German flag carrier, Herr Siebenrock made his mark at the airline in air cargo, and that meant days and nights working with or for Andreas Otto.
     Here, Jürgen speaks of his colleague and friend.
     “To complete the image of Andreas Otto, you need to color it with words such as leadership, compassion, calm, dependable, market & customer driven, demanding, and fairness.
     “Andreas is a leader, who has not lost his compassion and understanding; always available for his team, his dependability was a cornerstone for his managers, as we always knew that we could count on him for guidance.
     “He was the calm in the storm, keeping the seas navigable in the most treacherous waters.
     “His business strategy was always market driven—adjust and steer according to the demands of market and customer.
     “Andreas Otto is demanding of himself and subsequently of others, but with his fairness and trustworthy support he assured all who worked with and for him success and gratification in its achievement.”

"Otto . . . Find'ich gut"

     We spoke to Achim Martinka, Lufthansa Cargo Vice President, the Americas, who said he is (thankfully) quite busy as 2014 winds down, but stands up here to be counted as a big fan of Andreas Otto.
     “Without Andreas Otto, Lufthansa Cargo wouldn’t be where it is today and I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
     Achim declared:
     “He’s a great boss and leader who gives a lot of autonomy and trust to his team-members, but knows also very well how to challenge us again and again.
     “I’m glad that I could learn as much from him in the past 14 years and it’s still difficult to imagine our company without him.
     “But what is certain is he has laid a great foundation and built-up an excellent team, so nobody should worry about us.
     “I’m confident he will do a great job with Austrian Airlines and wouldn’t be surprised if my Austrian colleagues will come to the same conclusion like myself by citing a very famous publicity spot in Germany: “Otto . . . find’ ich gut !”

Otto Is A Doer

     Florian Pfaff, vice president area management Germany, who has known Andreas Otto since he came on board had this to add.
     "The first time I met with Andreas was probably in the year 2000, and it was during my assignment as Regional Director in Los Angeles.

     “One of my first thoughts at the time was that he would also fit perfectly into the Southern California environment—just like I felt I would.
     “During this time we developed several ads for our time definite services, and one of my favorite motives was one of a surfer dude riding a big wave with his surf board—he looked exactly like Andreas.
     “Funny enough, he claimed the dude looked like me, and having barely any hair left I am sure that I was right and he was wrong.
     “Well, this was probably one of the few exceptional moments where we had a disagreement. In the last 14 years, 10 of them as my direct boss, we had many thoughts and ideas in common.
     “Andreas’ biggest strength is most probably his customer orientation, which he continuously demonstrated during his time as a Board Member for Sales and Product. He always challenged the entire company to put the customer first. Customer orientation for Andreas did not mean fulfilling any customer wish—it meant understanding the needs of a customer and finding ways to develop solutions to satisfy both the customer request and Lufthansa Cargo’s own interests. Over the years Andreas has been the host of 14 Global Partner Councils, a forum where the top executives of our Global Business Partners meet for 3 days to talk business and build relationships, trust, and friendships. Andreas and his wife Kirsten has been wonderful hosts in some of Europe’s best spots. The high participation of all major customers was proof that for a few days he was able to gather the industry leaders around him—this is absolutely unique in our industry and must be credited Andreas and his customer orientation (another strength of Andreas is his steady hand. During one of the biggest crisis of the airfreight industry and ultimately also for Lufthansa Cargo, he headed a team to secure our results. With various ideas and activities, Andreas and the team managed to improve the result from a Mio Euro loss a day to a still miserable result of minus 170 Mio Euros for the entire year 2009).
     “What most impressed me during this time is how calm he managed the team and the difficult situation—other managers would have panicked or overreacted. Andreas maintained his path and gave the team the confidence to make it happen and turn around this company.
     “As soon as the market picked up by the end of 2009, Andreas took the initiative to regain profitable rates and announced a brave 25 percent rate increase, which in the end became a huge success and an even higher increase as planned.
     “I must admit though that not all of his ideas were successful in the end. WOW and JADE were two prominent ones during his time as member of the Executive Board of Lufthansa Cargo. Nevertheless, Andreas accepted both defeats as part of doing business. This is another characteristic trait of Andreas—he is a doer and accepts failures and mistakes as long as they are not repeated a second time.
     “It’s been great to work for Andreas and to learn from him. He is now leaving to become the COO of Austrian Airlines, but he remains a good friend.
     “No doubt, we will surely miss him.
     “All the best in Vienna, Andreas!"

Klaus Holler Remembers

     But the people that know Dr. Otto the best are his colleagues, and especially people who worked for him.
     Amongst that group one name stands tall: Klaus Holler.
     Klaus capped a brilliant career at Lufthansa Cargo, retiring a few years ago after restoring the Americas cargo business to the German carrier in a spectacular fashion.
     We spoke to Klaus, who had much to say about his now friend and former boss, Andreas Otto.
     “Andreas was for me in my long tenure with Lufthansa, the best boss I had.
     “Not only did he have a very natural leadership quality, but also trusted his staff to a point that he did not and had not to interfere too much in the day-to-day business.
     “Leading is creating visions and ideas and transporting those to his staff for implementation.
     “However, all feedback and differing views on matters was taken seriously and into consideration, for a final consent on how strategies were to be implemented.
     “Andreas had a great understanding of the Cargo business and could really put himself into the needs of his customers.
     “Not that Andreas always did what they wanted—there were a lot of controversial decisions made by Lufthansa Cargo (actual vs. volume weight, etc).
     “But Andreas stood his ground and also motivated us to implement, although it was tough at times being on the front line.
     “Being a connoisseur, being able to distinguish between a good and a bad red wine, and smoking a good cigar once in a while made it always pleasant to be together with him during meetings or customer events.
     “Andreas’ sense of work and duty is matched with his love of life.
     “Especially notable were our yearly Global Partner Council encounters, where he always saw that organization was perfect and everything was arranged to his and therefore also to our customers’ satisfaction.
     “On the humorous front, we had fun times in Munich every year during our Octoberfest visits.
     “That was another must on his (and our) schedule.
     “Andreas loves to play golf (he is a 17 handicap) and I always enjoyed to be on a round with him.
     “Once in a while we still meet for a round in Wiesbaden.
     “Now I guess we will have to go to Vienna to shoot a round.
     “At 51, Andreas Otto loves his family and young son, and I believe he tries to spend as much time at home as possible.
     “This might now be a bit more difficult, but knowing him, he will manage this too.
     “I can only wish him every success in the tough job ahead,” Klaus Holler said.

Path To Vienna

     The new Chief Commercial Officer at Austrian Airlines, Dr. Andreas Otto was born in Mettmann near Düsseldorf on October 9, 1962. After training as a bank manager, he started a course in business administration at Cologne University in 1985. During his studies, Dr. Otto took part in a foreign exchange as part of the International Management program in Stockholm. After various internships in London, Paris, and New York, Dr. Otto completed his studies in 1991, obtaining a degree in business administration. In 1994 he was awarded a doctorate (Dr. rer. pol).
     In the same year, Dr. Otto launched his cargo career as project manager logistics at Rhenus AG & Co. KG in Dortmund. In 1996 he was appointed managing director of Rhenus Office Systems GmbH, and two years later he was promoted to the position of senior vice president sales of Rhenus AG. In 1999 he became Deputy Board Member for Marketing & Sales of the logistics service provider.
     On March 13, 2000, he took a seat on the Executive Board of Lufthansa Cargo AG. Aside from his stewardship of worldwide sales and handling, he was responsible for Margin Management, Product Management, the eCargo future project, as well as Global Network and Sales Steering.

     “Andreas Otto was not always easy to deal with—but he was always open to new ideas and new approaches,” recalls Nils Haupt, the top marketing and public relations executive at Lufthansa Cargo for more than a decade.
     Today, Haupt has taken on a similar giant responsibility at Hapag Lloyd, but he still remembers life with Andreas.
     “It was always about ideas, and in that atmosphere air cargo was exciting.
     “If you had a good idea he was willing to follow you—at least up to a certain extent.
     “When I was spokesperson of Lufthansa Cargo I tried to gather the airline and air cargo journalists regularly in Frankfurt to show them our innovations or present them our figures in the annual press conferences.
     “Regularly Dr. Otto met in the fall with journalists for a meeting which we called ‘Meet the Trends’—and we started in a dance club which was famous for House Music.
     “One day I suggested we do a presentation in a transvestite club in Frankfurt, which had just recently opened.
     “Andreas was skeptical.
     “But then we dared to do it—and it was one of the most recalled and loved events we created during our time together.
     “We had a formal presentation and then a transvestite show par excellence.
     “And still today—more than a decade later—journalists talk about it.
     “This ‘daring to do the unexpected’ was something which I admired and admire still today about Andreas.
     “He always was—and still is—a cool chap.
     “And I very much hope he will remain as cool and daring in his new job as well.”

To our readers: We'd like to hear from you. Send us a Dr. Otto story and we will be pleased to include it in a future issue.

*Thanks to Bubble Up and Toledo, Ohio a long time ago.

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