Focus on family businesses: Wilo featured in international book project
“The Secrets of German Family Businesses” is being published by Prestel Verlag
Dortmund/Berlin. What are the secrets of German family businesses? The answers are soon to be published in a book by Prestel Verlag. Editors Uwe Rittmann, Tobias Rappers and Olaf Salié have drawn on their personal experiences, practical examples and analyses in order to shine a light on the diversity and strength of German family businesses in their book, “The Secrets of German Family Businesses”. The multinational water technology group Wilo is featured in the section on “World market leaders”.
“We are proud of the fact that this important book project has dedicated an extensive section to us”, explains Oliver Hermes. In 2019, the President & Global CEO of the Wilo Group was appointed by Dr.-Ing. E. h. Jochen Opländer to be his entrepreneurial successor; the Wilo CEO simultaneously took over as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Wilo-Foundation, a family foundation. Oliver Hermes is now the fifth generation to head up the 153-year-old company.
“The book clearly explains what makes family businesses successful: courage, passion, responsibility and continuity. Most of all, however, it is also the ability to introduce family values into the workforce, irrespective of the part of the world in which they are based”, continues Hermes. This is even more important when it comes to global companies like Wilo – with headquarters in Dortmund, the group has around 90 production and sales companies in over 50 countries worldwide.
In the first part of the book, “The Secrets of German Family Businesses”, leading experts provide explanations of how internal forces characterise family businesses and the way in which they forge change. The second part of the book includes comprehensive profiles of German family businesses, from “hidden champions” to up-and-coming “rising stars” and global market leaders. Following the launch of the book in Germany, the publisher is also planning to publish it in the UK and the USA in 2026.
For Wilo, the contribution in “The Secrets of German Family Businesses” is actually the second honour of this kind in 2025: part way through the year, the Smart Factory at the Wilopark in Dortmund was named one of the “spectacular sites of industrial production in German-speaking countries” in the book “Traumfabriken” (dream factories). Also published by Prestel Verlag, this book showcases the high-tech factory with a profile entitled “Klimaneutrale, smarte Vorzeigefabrik” (climate-neutral, smart showcase factory).
Rittmann, Uwe; Rappers, Tobias & Salié, Olaf (2025): The Secrets of German Family Businesses. Hardcover, 304 pages. ISBN 978-3-7913-9190-8. Prestel.
