Accelerate your experience – practical observations on performance, legitimacy, and leadership in a fluid world

attend the event, please register using this link: https://go.esmt.berlin/insight-hour-paul-achleitner

Experience used to accumulate slowly. Today, decisions travel instantly, legitimacy can evaporate overnight, and leaders operate under permanent public scrutiny. So how do you lead and stay legitimate in a world that no longer feels stable? In this ESMT Insight Hour, Paul M. Achleitner joins us for a moderated conversation on leadership, corporate legitimacy, and performance in times of geopolitical disruption, digital transparency, and shifting societal expectations. Drawing on more than four decades across Goldman Sachs, Allianz, Deutsche Bank, and multiple supervisory boards, and reflecting the themes of his recent book, Accelerate Your Experience: Principles for Success in a Fluid World, Achleitner proposes three interconnected dimensions of modern management: Legitimacy – why companies must earn their place in society beyond financial performance

Performance – how sustained value creation requires focus, discipline, and strategic clarity

Leadership – what integrity, intellectual humility, and judgment mean in an era of permanent visibility

Rather than offering prescriptions, he distills experience into principles on stakeholder dynamics, public attention, geopolitical disruption, AI, crisis management, and the realities of “muddling through.” The conversation will explore: Why legitimacy has become the decisive constraint for corporations How leaders balance long-term value creation with short-term scrutiny What performance really means when underperformance becomes normalized The evolving role of boards in turbulent environments

Whether experience can, in fact, be “accelerated”

Join us for an hour of reflection on leadership under pressure and on what it takes to remain effective, credible, and resilient. Moderated by Jörg Rocholl, President, ESMT Berlin.