St.Gallen Leadership Award

The St.Gallen Leadership Award 2025 Goes to: Festo Group (1st Place), Land Vorarlberg (2nd Place), and AXA Switzerland (3rd Place)!

Prof. Dr. Heike Bruch, Professor of Leadership at the University of St.Gallen, opened the festive award ceremony on the evening of June 25, 2025. She said, “All three finalists are winners – today there are no losers. We want to strengthen leadership and encourage courage. We want to inspire by making outstanding leadership initiatives visible. Particularly gratifying: This year’s finalists come from all three DACH countries – Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.”

The eleven-member jury of renowned HR professionals pre-selected three finalists – the submissions were evaluated according to the criteria of Performance Relevance, Innovation, Inspiration, and Sustainability. The companies presented their initiatives on Wednesday evening during the St.Gallen Leadership Night. The expert audience on-site voted for the winners in a live poll.

This year, 1st place went to the Festo Group. Congratulations to the Festo Group for their holistic and target-group-specific leadership initiative “Leadership Excellence”.

2nd place went to Land Vorarlberg for their innovative leadership initiative “Raus aus dem Understatement”. Congratulations to Land Vorarlberg.

3rd place went to AXA Switzerland for their remarkable initiative on “Shared Leadership in Operations”. Congratulations to the entire company.

Further information on the winning initiatives:

Festo Group: The Festo Group established a holistic, target-group-specific leadership program worldwide with innovative and inspiring components that combine diagnostics, development, and feedback. It relies on modern leadership instruments, glocal formats, and AI-supported tools.

Land Vorarlberg: With the initiative “Raus aus dem Understatement,” the Vorarlberg state administration has participatively developed a new fundamental understanding of collaboration and leadership – serving as both a turning point and a new beginning. The initiative demonstrates that balancing actions in pronounced areas of tension is a strength, convinces from within, and is an important driver of administrative transformation.

AXA Switzerland: Through a Shared Leadership approach in its operational unit, AXA Switzerland promotes a future-oriented way of working that places people and their potential at the center and creates strong self-leadership as well as an inspiring leadership culture for active employee participation. This strength-oriented approach enables the company to be more flexible and adaptable.

The St.Gallen Leadership Award 2024 Goes to: Deutsche Bahn (1st Place), BUCS IT GmbH (2nd Place), and A&O Shearman (3rd Place)!

“We want to strengthen leadership. We want to foster courage, enthusiasm, and competence. We want to encourage companies to learn from the best – by making these leadership initiatives more visible.” With this mission, Prof. Dr. Heike Bruch opened the St.Gallen Leadership Award 2024 ceremony. 1st place went to Deutsche Bahn AG. Congratulations to Deutsche Bahn AG and especially to Kerstin Wagner, Lea-Sophie Münker, and their team for their courageous leadership initiative “Green Empowerment”. 2nd place went to BUCS IT for the leadership initiative “Der Mensch zählt”. Congratulations to BUCS IT and personally to Robert Stübner, Manuel Becker, and Lukas Atzert. 3rd place went to Allen&Overy Shearman for their remarkable initiative “Holistic Leadership as a Key to Profitable and Diverse Growth”. Congratulations to the entire company and especially to Bianca Städter and Annette Höher-Bäuerle.

The St.Gallen Leadership Award 2023 Goes to: Spital Thurgau AG (1st Place), Bosch Bamberg (2nd Place), and Lufthansa Technik (3rd Place)!

Selected from numerous high-quality applications, evaluated by our jury, and decided by live voting at the St.Gallen Leadership Day with Night. After 6-minute pitches, it was clear: All three award winners can be very proud of their courageous leadership initiatives, because they are not only performance-relevant but also drive modern leadership with innovation and inspiration.

1st place went to Spital Thurgau AG. Congratulations to Spital Thurgau and Silja Drack and team for their courageous leadership initiative “Employership @STGAG”.

2nd place went to Bosch Bamberg for the leadership initiative “Leading Transformation – How to get standing ovations in times of transformation?”. Congratulations to Bosch Bamberg and personally to Janula Petroglou and Dr. Martin Schultz.

3rd place went to Lufthansa Technik for their remarkable initiative “Vibrant Leadership”. Congratulations to Lufthansa Technik and especially to Barbara Körner and Christopher Tripp.

Bosch Mobility Solutions is the winner of the St.Gallen Leadership Award 2022!
Selected from numerous applications, evaluated by our jury, and decided by voting at the St.Gallen Leadership Day. After 6-minute pitches, it was clear: All three award winners can be very proud of their courageous and innovative leadership initiatives, because they are not only performance-relevant but also helped in dealing with the Corona pandemic.
1st place went to Bosch Mobility Solutions for the leadership initiative “Advancing tomorrow today – transform2grow lab”. Congratulations to Bosch and personally to Angela Majewski, Eva Thelen, Petra Kama-Welle, and Jens Mohaupt.
2nd place went to Infineon for their remarkable initiative “Leadership Initiative – Connecting the real and the digital world”. Congratulations to Infineon, the team around Jessica Richter, and Sebastian Dorfmeister for the presentation.
This year, 3rd place went to Qiagen. Congratulations to Qiagen and Dr. Thomas Schweins for their courageous leadership initiative on “Life Science Learning Journey – A Shared Partnership Approach to Strengthening Leadership Competence and Employee Development”.

VDM Metals Group is the winner of the St.Gallen Leadership Award 2021!
The Institute for Leadership and Human Resource Management (I.FPM) of the University of St.Gallen and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Personalführung e.V. (DGFP) presented the St.Gallen Leadership Award on 2021-11-16 during the digital DGFP // Annual Conference for HR Development. The winner of the St.Gallen Leadership Award 2021 was determined by live voting. The aim of the St.Gallen Leadership Award is to enhance the visibility of exemplary conduct and successful leadership techniques, instruments, and strategies. Based on the criteria of Performance Relevance, Innovation, Inspiration, and Sustainability, the Institute for Leadership and Human Resource Management made a pre-selection from the applications and evaluated them through a jury consisting of Heike Bruch and experts in human resource management.
Among the three finalists, Daimler AG, Swiss Re Group, and VDM Metals Group, VDM Metals Group secured 1st place with its holistic approach to sustainable change in leadership culture with its “VDM Leadership Compass”. Daimler AG took 2nd place. With their digital program “Leading Transformation,” a deep and sustainable mindset and behavioral shift is supported across all levels, business units, and locations worldwide. This year, 3rd place went to the Swiss Re Group. With their successfully established initiative “Dialogue Culture,” which aims for a sustainable leadership culture at eye level, the project targets an agile corporate culture.

The HR community has decided – Deutsche Bahn wins the St.Gallen Leadership Award 2019

In 2019, the St.Gallen Leadership Award was presented for the sixth time, again in cooperation with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Personalführung (DGFP), the leading competence and career network for HR enthusiasts in the German-speaking world. The Award recognizes companies for outstanding and successful leadership initiatives. This provides a platform for exemplary commitment in the field of leadership and thus contributes to the dissemination of progressive leadership in practice.

Based on the criteria of Performance Relevance, Innovation, Inspiration, and Sustainability, the Institute for Leadership and Human Resource Management made a pre-selection from the applications and personally interviewed the most promising companies. The ten best leadership projects were then evaluated by a jury, consisting of Heike Bruch and experts in human resource management, and the three finalists were determined.

Selected from a variety of applications and chosen by the St.Gallen Leadership Award jury, Deutsche Bahn, Porsche, and Schaeffler presented their respective leadership initiatives. After the pitches, it was clear: All three award winners are rightly proud of their courageous and innovative leadership initiatives – all are already demonstrating impact today.

1st place went to Deutsche Bahn, which transformed succession planning from a classic HR planning instrument into a leadership innovation. Through the new system, employees are motivated to apply for succession positions in an uncomplicated manner. At the same time, incumbents are actively involved in the process, which improves the selection of suitable candidates and leads to a smooth personnel transition.

Porsche received 2nd place for the remarkable development and implementation of a new corporate and leadership culture. This provides managers and employees with a reliable values compass in volatile times.
3rd place went to Schaeffler for their innovative leadership initiative “Leadership & Corporate Values” with digital elements such as the Leadership Toolbox, the Pulse Check, and a Leadership Simulation.

On the evening of 2018-05-04 at the DGFP // congress in Berlin, Oerlikon Manmade Fibers won the St.Gallen Leadership Award 2018 in front of over 300 HR decision-makers. The global market leader from Remscheid convinced the audience with its outstanding leadership initiative OMF+. OMF+ focuses on young talents as change drivers to successfully master current challenges, not least those of digital transformation. In doing so, existing knowledge within the organization is leveraged and specifically enriched with innovative methods and the latest scientific findings from external sources.

This year, 2nd place went to Daimler AG with the Leadership 2020 initiative. With the help of eight new leadership principles and game changers, which emerged from a company-wide participation process, Daimler consciously breaks with existing patterns and creates the foundation for sustainable cultural change.

3rd place went to Commerzbank with its Digital Leadership Challenge (DLC). DLC is a novel and agile-developed leadership program that combines a digital learning platform with interactive leadership coaching and dialogue with startups.

Swisscom won the St.Gallen Leadership Award at the DGFP // congress 2017 in front of over 300 HR decision-makers. In a live vote, the Swiss market leader convinced the audience with its outstanding leadership initiative Pulse. The company particularly scored with its innovative approach, which affects the entire company and encompasses different levels. With the help of Pulse, Swisscom was able to significantly increase transparency within the company and foster a self-learning environment for all involved.

This year, 2nd place went to Fraport AG, which is breaking new ground in diagnostically supported leadership development as part of its Grow initiative. Through this, Fraport has succeeded in being able to promote and further develop its leaders even more individually in the future.

3rd place went to Audi AG, which successfully initiated a far-reaching cultural change throughout the entire group through its company-wide leadership initiative Social Change, Growth and Internationalization – and the Impact on Leadership.

At the DGFP// congress 2016, the Raiffeisen Group won the St.Gallen Leadership Award. In a live vote, the Swiss financial institution convinced the audience with its outstanding leadership initiative. The company particularly excelled with its inspiring and far-reaching approach: With 10,000 employees, the Raiffeisen strategy and values were developed, experienced, and measures derived together, in one place, and on one day.

This year, 2nd place went to Adam Opel AG, which found its way back to success due to its innovative and sustainable approach Umparken im Kopf.

3rd place went to Allianz AG, which developed and successfully established a sustainable leadership culture at eye level with the initiative “Dialogue Culture”.

The winner of the St. Gallen Leadership Award 2015 is Graubündner Kantonalbank (GKB) with its project Leadership Development@GKB. GKB particularly impressed with its holistic, systematic, and sustainable leadership development, which contributes to integrated management of GKB and has made it one of the most modern and successful retail banks in Switzerland.

This year, 2nd place went to Porsche AG (Germany) with its project Porsche Dealer Academy. The project’s goal is to establish a Porsche Master program with a special focus on leadership as a qualification measure for the managing directors of international Porsche Centers.

3rd place was awarded to the Leadership Academy of the Federal Employment Agency (Germany) with its initiative Making Leadership Support and Leadership Tangible. The project focuses on the targeted and tailor-made development of entire leadership teams in the sense of proactive potential supervision.

The winner of the St. Gallen Leadership Award 2014 was Raiffeisen Switzerland with the project Development into a Leadership Original. The project’s goal was for leaders to engage with the topic of leadership, their own persona, and their current and future leadership position. In a multi-stage process involving HR developers, employees, and superiors, Raiffeisen leaders develop their personal understanding of leadership and thus evolve into a Leadership Original. More than 200 junior leaders have already successfully completed the leadership program, with over 60% reaching their target position after program completion.