I t was never Nadine Fink’s plan to work for Siemens. Despite the fact that both her father and grandfather worked in the Nuremberg factory for over 30 years, Nadine had her sights set on sporting success. In the back garden of the house that she grew up in Germany, Nadine discovered her passion for handball.
Hardworking and focused, she was determined to reach the top of her field: “I did everything I could to become a champion, and I always gave it my best,” she says. Aged 17, she was recruited for the German youth national handball team. Day-in and day-out she trained, played and competed. But one day, she suffered a serious knee injury that forced her to step down from the team.
“It was an incredibly hard time,” she says, “and I really suffered. Up until that point I spent my whole life determined to become a professional handball player. Suddenly, I had to ask myself, ‘What do I want to do for the rest of my life? What’s important to me?’”
Refusing to stay trapped in the past
After her knee injury, Nadine was desperate to stay involved with handball, in whatever way, shape or form, so she began training younger teams and realized she got an immense sense of satisfaction helping other people. “I’m actually glad it happened, because my life is so much bigger now,” she says. “Before I mainly played handball, this was rather one dimensional. Now I have had many different experiences and I really love what I do.”
With that realization, Nadine enrolled in a six-year theology course at Nuremberg University.
“I learned a lot about people,” she says. “Theology touches the most important moments in a person’s life: birth, marriage, death. You learn a lot about the challenges people face and how they handle them.
It wasn’t a devout passion for any particular religion that drove Nadine to study theology, instead it came from a desire to understand more about life. “I had to learn about history, ethics, philosophy, and I learned about different cultures and religions,” she says. “It made me question everything because that’s what theology teaches you. I realized that there is always more than one perspective how things can be interpreted.”
Before the course, Nadine had started on the journey to a career as an industrial clerk. Although unrelated to theology, she managed to bring the two together. Nadine’s theology course was broad, but she decided to focus on business ethics.
Her manager describes her as someone who is genuinely interested in her colleagues and always strives to be supportive. “We are all a part of a bigger picture,” she says. “It’s like when I’m in nature, when I’ve just climbed a mountain and I’m standing at the top, I can’t help think about how we’re all connected. I’m particularly happy when I’m part of a community. It’s why I loved handball so much, because we were a team. I think success comes from working together; when you look after and support one another.”
Building a new future
Fast forward fifteen years and Nadine has found her new calling. As a Compliance Professional at Siemens in Germany, she spends her days supporting the business, with a focus on compliance risk management, communications and human rights.
As one of the many people whose job it is to help both Siemens’ work and workplace navigate the shallows of business ethics, she’s a great advocate of the company’s core values: responsible, excellent and innovative.
“The first one, responsibility, is all about fostering a culture of ownership,” says Nadine. “When we’re responsible for our own decisions we think like an entrepreneur. We want people to feel that they’re making the best decisions for the company.”
But it also extends to the relationships within the company. “We have to look out for each other,” she says. “There are so many more dimensions to it.”
Working globally, thinking locally
As a global employer, Siemens has an enormous weight of responsibility. Ten years ago, says Nadine, the company went through a major ethical transformation when a corruption scandal forced them to completely rethink their processes and create clear integrity standards. “Now we’ve developed a risk-based organization with a value-based culture,” she says.
The company’s second principle is all about aiming for the top, “Excellence means being the best,” says Nadine. “But by that I mean from all angles — both from a company perspective and from the individual’s point of view.”
Their third principle is innovation. “Being innovative means constantly rethinking the main principles that underlie our decisions; who, what where, how and why. “What am I doing that’s good for Siemens? Can I do it faster, better or another way?” We can’t stay in the past, we need to keep thinking about the future.”
Updating the rulebook
Stress and burnout has become a 21st century endemic — it’s estimated that up to one million people in the US alone miss work every day because of stress. As part of her degree, Nadine took part in a program that supports people experiencing mentally challenging situations, like burnout and depression. “The main thing I learnt was how to listen,” she says, “how to be present, really be interested in what the other person is saying, and ask the right questions at the right time.”
Nadine’s job isn’t about rewriting the rules, it’s about modernizing them. “We are always searching for the right modern language that describes what Siemens is about,” she says. “People should only need to read the first sentence of our core values to understand what we are about.”
Nadine is firm that communication is paramount to helping people get through difficult times. In her job, she needs to convey the company’s principles across different types of people, in different roles, across the world. “I actually do a bit of journalistic work in my current role,” she says, “like creating content for the Siemens intranet or an app for the Hanover Fair.”
Outside of her day-to-day role, Nadine is dedicated to making her workplace a modern flagship for inclusion and tolerance. She’s part of a women’s network at Siemens Germany, designed to help women in leadership roles by empowering them to realize their full potential. With over 500 members, the network has been going for about seven years. Nadine currently writes the newsletter, keeping members up to date with the latest news and opportunities. “Knowledge really is power when it comes to helping women reach the top of their game,” she says.
Siemens’ progressive values aren’t just upheld by Nadine, as an employee she also reaps their rewards. She has two young children, so she currently works part time. “I’ve always wanted to be actively involved in my family,” she says. “I want to be a partner, a mother, and to be there for my children. But I also want to be responsible for what I do in the company. I want to own my tasks and be successful. And at Siemens I can do both.”
At Siemens, Nadine is a Compliance Professional responsible for Communication, Risk Management and Human Rights for the Divisions Digital Factory and Process Industries and Drives. She lives in Nuremberg with her family. Find out more about working at Siemens.
Illustration: Marcus Marritt
Photography: Nadine Fink
