Thomas Bargetzi, Founder and CEO of THOMAS BARGETZI AG, believes that success is the goal of all works, activities, or things you try to achieve, and the result of many little pieces of performance. “I get up in the morning to be successful, otherwise I stay in bed. Success is a mindset. This means you must be a leader, concentrated and focused on the matters you do, with the people you are working with!” he declares.
Bargetzi also believes that failure is the other side of success and that you can only become successful if you are ready to accept this fact. Likening success in sports to success in life, where sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, he notes that in life, you simply need to win one more time than you lose, which means you have won!
Preparing for success
As a sports addict in his youth, Bargetzi intended to become a professional sportsperson, but his father urged him to get a basic university degree to have access to all the options he needed to perform in his business life, once his sports career was over.
Bargetzi considers this the best advice he ever got, and after he finished his sports career, he went through 13 years of further education, studying finance, management, business administration (an MBA at City University), a postgraduate in controlling, and two bachelors degrees in marketing and sales. Equally important for European operations, he speaks four languages fluently; English, French, German and Italian.
Having reached the top of a very big company, the Feldschlosschen Brewery in Switzerland, at the age of only 37, Bargetzi felt that there must be something else he could aim for, and that goal turned out to be defining a new business model.
You simply need to win one more time than you lose, which means you have won!
Bargetzi noticed that consultants often had very good ideas, plans, and strategies, but little or no idea about the best way to make them operationally successful. With this in mind, he defined the business model of ‘operational interims management,’ which involved taking charge of these ideas, defining them clearly and using one’s own talents to realise and achieve success in what others have planned.
Along with his website, www.bargetzi.com, where he describes how one can implement this newly defined business approach, Bargetzi got together with three business colleagues and founded the Swiss Association for Interims Management (DSIM), where over 500 interim managers share experiences and advice for difficult situations.
As the CEO and owner of his own restructuring/turnaround company, Bargetzi’s modus operandi when having a mandate in a company is to start with 10 days of operational analyses, going through each department, talking to many, many people, going out to visit customers to get their input, get the strategy, and understand the job. Bargetzi follows up by proposing what he would do. “If the customer accepts, I execute what I proposed. I collect as many facts, figures, and data to understand where we make and where we lose money. I then propose actions to achieve the goals,” he explains.
Dare to dream
Bargetzi’s plan for the future of THOMAS BARGETZI AG is to achieve 60 mandates, which means he has five more to go. He also plans to continue working until he turns 70 and to have as much fun as possible in business and his private life. As an avid sportsman, Bargetzi plays sports five days out of seven, mainly after work, to help digest what he has seen during his day. He also finds that movement is the best way to restore and recharge his batteries.
Bargetzi also has his eye on the new generation, hoping to inspire and guide those who will follow in his footsteps. Bargetzi hopes to convey more than ever that “everything is possible. You simply must watch out, try things, be smart, fast, and dare to fail.”
