Federal Cross of Merit awarded to Brigitte Voster-Alber, managing associate of GEZE GmbH

In September, Brigitte Vöster-Alber, Chairwoman of GEZE UK’s parent company GEZE GmbH, was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany. The award was in recognition of her outstanding commitment as a businesswoman and her exceptional social and cultural work.

During the ceremonial presentation in Stuttgart, Minister of Baden-Württemberg Günther H. Oettinger praised the long-time and dedicated entrepreneurial and social work of the managing associate of the Leonberg family-run business.

"With her successful entrepreneurial work, Brigitte Vöster-Alber has rendered an outstanding service to the state of Baden-Württemberg as a business location. Innovation and employee friendliness as well as her social sense of responsibility and cultural commitment, define her work,” said Minister Oettinger.

Brigitte Vöster-Alber had considerable responsibility already early on in her life. In 1968, after studying business management studies, she became, aged only 24 years, chairwoman of the board of GEZE GmbH. With her entrepreneurial foresight, she is the guardian of the company values and safely and successfully steered the family business, which has maintained its independence for 145 years, through economic ups and downs and market changes. Today the business is, with 1,000 employees in Germany and almost 2,000 staff worldwide, one of the world market and innovation leaders in window, door and safety technology. It is with the company values that Brigitte Vöster-Aber successfully guided the business through the current economic crisis. These values include the principle that the business will only expand through its own strength and resources; that, with its own company capital, it will remain independent from third parties and that it puts return ahead of turnover.

Her self-understanding as a businesswoman and benefactress is highly modern. She views social commitment as one of her civic duties. These also include the long term securing of workplaces, employee promotion and the reconciliation of work and family. Since the beginning of her managerial career and as a mother of four children she is very much aware of the potential for problems. She introduced individual working time models and home office workplaces for women at GEZE many years ago – at a time at which this was not a matter of course. With women making up 35% of top and second level management, the number of women in management positions in a technology company is exceptionally high.

Brigitte Vöster-Alber’s most significant social commitment going beyond the company is her generous financial support of the non-profit Olgäle Foundation for Sick Children. Already in its fourth year, she is financing the new building and project work of the children’s hospital of the Olga hospital in Stuttgart in areas in which the existing financial means have reached their limits and she donated 100,000 euros both this year and last. Furthermore, Brigitte Vöster-Alber was also the main sponsor of an ultrasonic probe for the children’s ward of the Leonberg district hospital. Further charitable commitment includes the financial support of the German Children’s Cancer Foundation in Heidelberg, the after-care clinic for children suffering from cancer in Villingen-Schwenningen, the victims of the severe earthquake in the Chinese province of Sichuan in May 2008, close to the GEZE subsidiary in Tjianjin, and the Ludwigsburg-Heilbronn regional association of the German Cystic Fibrosis Association.

Brigitte Vöster-Alber’s cultural commitment is equally diverse. She funded the entrance porch of the Stuttgart Literature House as well as the glass tower of the Gallery Association exhibition building in Leonberg and the glass pavilion of the City Museum. Brigitte Vöster-Alber is also a cultural sponsor as a member of the board of trustees of the Foundation for the Promotion of the Semper Opera House in Dresden and, with her membership in the board of trustees of the ‘Hauses der Geschichte’ House of History in Stuttgart, she also contributes to making cultural heritage accessible to a broad public.