How to start up a hub
➔ SIXT Hub Lisbon
We’re talking about SIXT, a worldwide recognized brand in the area of premium mobility services, with car rental at its core and more than 2.000 branches worldwide, strongly investing as a digitization leader in its industry.
From their nearly 9.000 employees globally, several hundred people currently work to develop software, e.g. creating fresh apps, websites and self-service AI automations.
What most people don’t know is that SIXT is a family-owned group, now on its fourth generation.
“SIXT has the consistency of a family-owned business but is at the same time being stock-listed, highly profitable, growing 20 to 30% a year between 2020 and 2023, digital-driven and with a global footprint in the mobility industry”, Ingmar explains.
These are key aspects that make it interesting for someone who very early on had a career at major global Strategy consultancy firms, namely Bain and BCG.
A fast-paced career
Ingmar Zanger studied Mechanical Engineering in Germany and the USA (Cornell), got his PhD in Logistics from EHT Zurich, and now splits his time between Lisbon and Munich.
“I aim to strengthen the links between Munich headquarters and Lisbon. This helps to build trust and allows teams across a broad spectrum of Tech and customer-oriented functions to be built up within short time. Consistent growth allows projects like the Lisbon Hub to happen”, Ingmar tells us.
In the past five years, Ingmar ran different jobs and challenges at SIXT. He has worked in Corporate and Digital Strategy, he’s been the Head of the CEO Office and now he’s the Managing Director of SIXT Hub Lisbon.
Why Portugal?
But what exactly is happening in Lisbon?
As he puts it, “Lisbon is an attractive near-shoring location in the EU, close to our Munich headquarters. It’s a three-hour flight and there are five direct flights per day. Lisbon allows us to tap into a talent pool that is not easily available anymore in Germany. Be it in software development, data science, or other disciplines. We build software to automate global processes at SIXT, but we also provide manpower to corporate functions. And there is more potential”.
SIXT has two other hubs around the world, apart from Munich and Lisbon: one in Bangalore (India), another in Kyiv (Ukraine). Lisbon allows a European liaison with their biggest market, the USA, in terms of time zones, as it stands between Germany and the USA. According to Ingmar, "we scanned the entire world and chose Lisbon.”
Factory Lisbon became a home for the SIXT Hub Lisbon in the second half of 2022. Since then, the SIXT team here grew to around 100 people.
“SIXT Hub Lisbon is constantly growing and we have lots of open positions. This year we hired at high pace with the majority being Portuguese, the others being from all around the EU and Brazil”, Ingmar explains.
Ingmar sees in Portugal an underlying excellent education system that has been generating a lot of potential in people for many years. Some of them left the country. "These people are well-educated, well-trained, and have worked for relevant companies, either outside or inside Portugal. Many of them want to come back, if given the right opportunities and problems to solve.”
Another aspect to consider is the attractiveness in the standard of living. “There is more than just the sunshine, it's a healthy mix of professionalism in a tourism scenery. A lot of our digital nomads can choose to work worldwide, and they come here to settle down. There is this naturally given vibe of work-life balance”, Ingmar notes.
Last, but not least, “there’s individual tax laws that make people feel warmly welcome here, attracting talent from around the world. That also includes the Portuguese who left to work in Switzerland, UK, Germany and so on, now having an additional reason to come back. Now they can fill well-paid jobs that they couldn’t find before."
The plan for SIXT Hub Lisbon is to continue to serve the global business of SIXT.
According to Ingmar, “the office gives SIXT a sustainable platform for growth: we strengthen headquarter functions, allow them to access deep talent pools, and implement strategic priorities with their new teams”, he concludes.
What does Lisbon get from it?
What does Lisbon get - apart from jobs? SIXT is having a role in the development of a part of town that’s undergoing a transformation. Beato used to be a place of factory workers, with low education and high poverty ratios. Then factories were abandoned, and so were many old houses. Currently, it's being reconstructed and welcoming new projects, such as the SIXT Hub Lisbon.
Ingmar considers it an advantage for the company: “Beato sits between the city center, the airport and the river. It's amazingly located. It's a no-brainer for people coming to the city. Why is it not more developed? This is the moment to accelerate and lift off.”
According to him, “Factory Lisbon was the first one, the lighthouse, and it remains so. The innovation hub in Beato needs to speed up to assure first movers and investors. Lisbon itself, compared to all other investment locations worldwide, is on the rise.”
As it happens, in 2022, while Factory Lisbon’s construction project was just about to be finished, SIXT was looking to move in. “We trusted that there would be other companies to create an innovation cluster here. Companies like Claranet or Web Summit moving here gave us that trust later, as well as the frequent presence of the Mayor and all the big events”, Ingmar says.
SIXT is one of Factory Lisbon resident companies which contributes the most to this dynamic environment. We’ve been watching them activate the community with 10 to 15 events per year. Just recently, they had a female leadership event with 150 women, several tech events and one conference to launch studies of headhunting companies about how talent is behaving in the Portuguese tech market. Big tech companies like Microsoft, Cisco or OutSystems are frequent guests.
“Why?”, we ask Ingmar. “We aim to position the SIXT Hub in Portugal into a league of companies that have already paved the way as strong tech players. Beato and Factory Lisbon are amazing platforms for that.”
In the end, Ingmar’s optimism wins, when he talks about the hub. “I see how many different projects are currently started and how the development accelerates. We should appreciate where this place is coming from, its state of decay. Evolution takes time. Factory Lisbon took five years to build and it was important that it was done. Every visitor from the headquarters in Germany is stunned and amazed by the architecture, the vibe coming from the type of people, the freshness of it”.
April’s inheritance
Many conversations start with people talking about the weather. We left that topic for last.
According to Ingmar, the SIXT Hub Lisbon is getting “so much positivism, upfront trust and goodwill from the entire organization because Lisbon is connotated so positively. There is the weather (!), the good surroundings in the city, the proximity to the airport, to the ocean. People are blown away. Everyone wants to contribute and see it happening.”
As Portugal celebrates its 50th anniversary of freedom [from dictatorship], Ingmar questions a certain sense of shyness and skepticism he sees in the country and illustrates his optimist point of view:
“The journey since [the Revolution of] 25 de Abril is a crystal-clear example of how this country can strive. Portuguese people are celebrated internationally and now the country is also an example of excelling in the development of global tech and shared Service hubs. Definitely, Lisbon made its name, its place in the world. I think it’s a success story beyond comparison Portuguese can derive a new self-esteem from”.
