Recap: Rethinking Myths About Expanding Into Germany 

Transatlantic Takeoff: Hedging Headwinds With European Expansion

August 25, 2025
Burr + Forman

In Germany, hiring is hard and firing is impossible, regulation and privacy rules stifle digital innovation, and disruptive startup culture takes a back seat to risk-averse engineering.  

These and other myths about doing business in Europe’s largest economy were on the chopping block at an Atlanta forum focused on North Rhine-Westphalia as a gateway into the European Union. 

For about four years, NRW— the top state in Germany by population (18 million) and GDP (Nearly $900 billion, larger than Belgium) — has been the only one operating an investment and trade office in Georgia under the NRW.Global Business banner. 

The organization, represented in Atlanta by Daniel Dueren, in August worked with Global Atlanta to help local firms craft a strategy for “Transatlantic Takeoff,” preferably with NRW as a launchpad.  

CMS Law partner Kai Westerwelle, who flew in for the event from Silicon Valley, said that while his native country may be experiencing an economic slowdown at the moment, American companies can make fast inroads with the right support.

One by one, Dr. Westerwelle cycled through common misconceptions about business in Germany, noting that the country’s notorious works councils, feared for labor obstructionism, generally don’t touch foreign tech startups, especially when they’re under five employees. 

And while it’s true that there is generally no equivalent to “work for hire” in German labor law, American companies can test the waters with a term hire for up to 18 months before investing further.  

Contrary to some expectations, setting up a German entity is easy, Dr. Westerwelle said. Some may balk at a 25,000-euro minimum capital requirement to form a GmbH. He pointed out that this is not a fee, but a minimum that can be used in the operation of the business.

German Consul General Melanie Moltmann, who provided opening remarks at the event, pointed out how easy it is to get skilled workers into Germany, implying a contrast between its visa processes and that of the backlogged U.S. 

All in all, the speakers painted a picture of a place that, while perhaps not as freewheeling as the United States, is averse to litigation and focused on achieving “gold standard” regulation that enables investors to do business all over Europe and around the world.

“The most common myth about Germany is, ‘When you go there you can never leave.’ That’s not true, but you should never leave, that’s for sure,” Dr. Westerwelle said during the event, held at the Midtown offices of the law firm of Burr + Forman. 

For investors, Germany can also surface some “cheap tickets,” said Dr. Westerwelle. 

With astronomical salary markup for engineers working on artificial intelligence (known as KI in its German, or künstliche intelligenz) in Silicon Valley, U.S. venture capitalists have been finding young technical teams without the inflated prices — or even the German accent.

Dr. Westerwelle hosts delegations of more than 100 German startups on roadshows to the U.S. each year. 

“They are really strong. They really know what they want, and they are marketing much faster than I was used to seeing,” he said. 

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is trying to help American firms understand its charms in this realm, offering a 10,000-euro grant to those with under 50 million euros in revenue that will commit to a three-month stint in the state. 

Sander Biehn, CEO of Atlanta marketing automation software Ready for Social, shared how “the state chose me” when he went to serve a client and ended up setting up shop in Düsseldorf. 

On the AI front, he said, Germany is innovating rapidly, and hiring locally, with help from German government incentives, is the next step to deepening his commitment to the market. 

“As you’re thinking about hiring in Germany, while it’s always been a very scary thing because it’s much more expensive than in, let’s say, Eastern Europe, it’s not impossible to do. It’s just a matter of cracking the code.” 

United Parcel Service Inc. has had little problem finding workers in Germany since it started operating in the market in 1976, Vice President of Strategy for Europe and the Americas Kiel Harkness said. 

UPS employs 4,000 people just around its air hub in the NRW city of Cologne, opened in 1986 and expanded to the tune of about $200 million in 2014. 

“We chose NRW, not just for our massive operational base, but our HQ for the Germany, Austria, for Switzerland region, and then we have a lot of back office, kind of administrative work that’s done out of Neuss, and that just reflects the diversity of the bets we’ve placed there,” Mr. Harkness said.

Beyond logistics, the strong business environment also helps UPS stay close to the needs of bread-and-butter customers, informing its own internal improvements, Mr. Harkness said. 

“They drive a lot of the innovation that we’re bringing to market. So I think there’s a great mix of the big multinationals that we all know, but the small and medium business environment in Germany is driving our business,” he added. UPS employs about 20,000 people throughout its 86 German operating hubs. 

As a followup, Mr. Dueren is aiming to link up incubators and accelerators in Atlanta with their counterparts in NRW, which graduates 100,000 students from its universities every year and has strengths in energy, life sciences, EV batteries, fintech and other complementary sectors. 

“I’m a good bridge-builder for you guys,” he added. “Just know that we want your business, and we will help you until you succeed in our state.”

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PANELISTS:

Trevor Williams,
Managing Editor, Global Atlanta

Add the panelist bio

Sander Biehn,
CEO, ReadyforSocial

Sander Biehn is Founder and CEO of Ready For Social, an international marketing SaaS technology solution that let’s marketers create and direct direct their sales team’s social media activity to help them sell.  Ready For Social and its international subsidiary has been serving B2B enterprise and SMBs since 2016. Prior to starting Ready For Social, Sander worked as a sales leader for AT&T for many years. Sander spent the late 1990s in Amsterdam running channel management for a joint venture of KPN and AT&T. Sander lives and works in Atlanta, GA.

Daniel Dueren, Economic Development Director, Southeast – NRW.Global Business

Daniel Dueren, the NRW office representative, has deep experience working with German companies in the Southeast U.S.

Dr. Kai Westerwelle, Partner, CMS

Dr. Kai Westerwelle is a partner at the international law firm CMS in their Mountain View / California representative office. For more than 30 years, Kai has been advising US companies and high-growth start-ups, first in Germany and as of 2014 in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. His expertise focuses on international tech transactions, cross-border expansions, as well as international regulations, particularly on privacy, digital, and AI. Kai is the Chairman of the Board of the German American Business Association, member of the central Executive Committee and Regional Director San Francisco/West Coast of the German American Lawyers’ Association, and elected member of the Atlantik Brücke and the American Council on Germany. He regularly speaks at international conferences, and lectures data privacy at Universities in Germany and the US.

Kiel Harkness, VP for Strategy for Europe and Americas, UPS

Kiel Harkness has over 20 years of experience in various roles at UPS and UPS Capital. He joined UPS in 1999 as an Account Executive and held a variety of positions in marketing and pricing strategy until his promotion to Business Planning Director in 2012. From 2013 to 2020, Kiel served as the Director of Revenue Management and Business Planning for UPS’s Asia Pacific region and as Marketing Director for the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Nordic Countries. In 2020, Kiel became the Head of Global Marketing and Business Intelligence for UPS Capital, followed by a position as VP of International Product and Customer Technology before he took on his current role of vice president of Strategy for UPS Europe and Americas in 2025.

Kiel attended Boston University from 1995 to 1999 and holds an MBA in Marketing from Georgia State University – J. Mack Robinson College of Business.

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