After 12 years total with her organization and having her second child, Martina Stellmaszek is seeking a new direction.
The outgoing president and CEO of the German-American Chamber of Commerce of the Southern U.S. Inc. has enjoyed staying power not necessarily common at the chamber, which brings on lots of talented youngsters, most of whom move on after a few years.
Ms. Stellmaszek came to Atlanta from studying in Barcelona (facing a jolt of culture shock when realizing Atlantans eat dinner so early) and eventually headed up consulting services at the chamber over six years. While serving here, she earned an MBA at Emory University and met her husband, also a German. She left briefly, but returned when the CEO position came open and kept the role for five years.
“For me it was always interesting work. You always see a lot of different people. You have different tasks, different industries. You’re not working always in the automotive field or something,” she told Global Atlanta.
Not that she has anything against the auto sector, which has been the catalyst for more than 1,500 German subsidiary investments across the GACC South region. But it’s nice sometimes to get a change of pace, she said, remembering one request from a German company that makes cat furniture.
Ms. Stellmaszek spoke with Global Atlanta in a farewell interview at the chamber’s westside offices, just before passing the torch to Stefanie Jehlitschka, another chamber veteran who had previously served as vice president. Ms. Stellmaszek spoke about the challenges of running a regional chamber from Atlanta and what the South can do to deepen its ties with Germany.
The GACC South covers 11 states from the Carolinas to Texas, with chapters in Houston, Greenville, S.C. (home to BMW) and Chattanooga, Tenn. (home to a Volkswagen plant), as well as a newly hired staffer in Charlotte, N.C.
Through market-entry consulting and general advocacy, it has played a key role in wooing the German suppliers that have flocked to the Southeast, investing millions of dollars in factories often making seemingly obscure automotive components.
For that reason, the South has brand recognition in the auto sector, but Ms. Stellmaszek believes there’s more work to do in getting the wider word out in other industries.
“When you’re a German company not necessarily in the auto field, maybe Atlanta or Alabama or Tennessee is probably not the first place that comes to mind,” she said, noting that many Germans go to New York or Florida on vacation.
And some Southern communities are better equipped than others with the cultural infrastructure to welcome German expats, who sometimes find it hard to find educational options for their kids in the more rural areas where factories often make the most economic sense.
Atlanta and North Georgia have benefited from a clustering effect that has occurred, bringing German communities, Saturday schools, German-speaking lawyers and accountants, cultural offerings, the chamber, a consulate general and other assets together.
Education has been a touchstone for the chamber under Ms. Stellmaszek’s (and Ms. Jehlitchka’s) leadership. Just about every day the chamber gets some kind of inquiry from a county, city, school or company about its work helping communities establish technical education programs that borrow from the German apprenticeship model.
Many states see merit in directing students into technical or manufacturing fields early through work-study programs they believe can help solve companies’ ongoing struggle to find skilled labor, a key issue for competitiveness. The chamber in August helped launch the Georgia Consortium for Advanced Technical Training Program or GA CATT in Newnan. And Ms. Jehlitschka has spoken often around the region and the nation on technical training.
By extension, the chamber has also highlighted the importance of German language programs as a way to bridge the cultural gap and set students apart in the eyes of German employers. “I think it definitely gives applicants an edge” to know some German, Ms. Stellmaszek.
Those are some examples of regional success — along with opening a chapter in Florida, moving the Tennessee chapter to Chattanooga from Nashville and hiring a representative for the Carolinas in Charlotte — but the chamber is always struggling to reach out more across its full area of influence.
“I do feel like there’s a lot that I did accomplish, but there could also be more,” Ms. Stellmaszek said, lamenting at the same time that she didn’t get out to see as many German companies in person as she would have liked.
The GACC South’s annual report shows the tug and pull of a regional chamber — the same challenge that many consulates face being based in Atlanta and covering a broader region.
The chamber is agnostic about the location of the ultimate location of companies it helps through consulting services.
“What we always tell companies is that we don’t care where you go. Whether you go to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi or even California — it’s all fine with us; we just want to support you along the way with whatever we can,” Ms. Stellmaszek says.
But the reality is that a lot of the work happens in Georgia. Some 41 percent of members are within Georgia, and 1,600 out of 3,800 event attendees — including a record 540 at the chamber’s annual gala — were in Georgia, compared with 1,300 in Texas and 600 in the Carolinas.
That said, membership in the Carolinas grew by 54 percent in 2016, according to the report, so things could be moving in a more regional direction.
As for Ms. Stellmaszek, she retains her role as the volunteer chair for the American Council on Germany’s chapter in Atlanta, keeping a foothold in the community while she takes a break and seeks her next move.
It could be politics — or something more international and less focused on Germany.
The great thing about Atlanta, she says, is the way one can make her mark without worrying about being from another country or speaking a different language.
“I think you can also have a career with an accent, and you have a lot of foreign nationals heading lots of large corporations, which is not that common in other countries,” she said.
That — and the Southern hospitality.
Read the chamber’s annual report here.
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