What kept us busy this year: Review of the editor-in-chief

Dear readers,

I get in touch from Düsseldorf with the warmest wishes for a Merry Christmas.

We have had a remarkable year for many reasons. If 2020 was the year when many still hoped the pandemic would be over after a few months, then 2021 was the year we learned to deal with a new uncertainty.

Employees are now used to moving to the home office within days, companies to convert their supply chains at short notice – as best they can. And vaccine manufacturers can adapt their vaccines to new corona mutations within a few months.

The months were exhausting, and not just because of the uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Also due to the enormous pressure to change in almost all industries. But there were also interesting months, with fascinating innovations and new beginnings in many industries. The pandemic is a turning point that economic historians may one day describe as a dividing point between a before and an after.

Many of our articles and podcasts in the Handelsblatt dealt with this turning point this year. Today you can read a selection of the stories and events that particularly stuck in my memory.

What kept us busy this year:

1. In the editorial team in 2021 we kept asking ourselves what the aftermath, the time after the pandemic, will look like – and above all: which people and innovations will shape this time. That was also the topic of our big anniversary edition, in which we focused on 75 ideas and innovations that will move Germany forward.

In an essay that week I described why the world is facing a decade of disruptions. And I am more convinced of this than ever: It could be the Roaring Twenties, a phase of innovation, growth and new beginnings – if this country takes the right path now.

2. A personal highlight of the anniversary week was my live podcast with Herbert Diess. I talked to the VW boss about the restructuring of his group, the problems in Wolfsburg, the feared opponent Tesla – and his tapas bar in Munich. A few months later, Diess started a historic dispute with the VW works council with staff reduction scenarios. How the overseers then thought about his future, Diess had to read first in the Handelsblatt.

3. In April we published a major analysis of the federal government’s electricity lie, describing how the then ruling grand coalition was endangering Germany’s energy future with false prognoses. The many exclusive calculations in the text were later taken up again and again by the top candidates in the election campaign.

When I interviewed the then Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz in late summer, he warned of the problem in clear words. Now he has to show that it was more than just campaign skirmishes back then. In any case, industrial managers are increasingly concerned about the shaky electricity supply situation in Germany. A topic that will certainly continue to accompany us next year.

4th The task of journalism is to describe the world, to control political as well as economic power, to uncover the unknown. That is how we see ourselves. In one story in 2021, we discussed this self-image in particular: It’s about the Wirecard case and the question of how the auditors were able to overlook the gigantic fraud. A team of Handelsblatt reporters managed a very special scoop on this issue: They got their hands on the highly explosive and classified investigation report of the Wirecard special auditor, a 168-page report that deals with the role of the auditing company EY in dealt with the scandal.

We have dedicated a cover story to this explosive document and published the complete report on the Internet. No other story has made such waves in the past few months. Thousands of new subscribers came to us through history. That shows how many people value journalism.

5. Delivery bottlenecks and problems in global supply chains were among the greatest concerns for German executives in the past year. And no Handelsblatt cover has summed up the problem as well as this:

Today we know: The reporters were correct in their forecast. At dinner, be it with Dax board members or medium-sized companies, this topic is becoming more and more important. According to a DIHK survey, almost 70 percent of companies want to pass the increased prices on to their customers. That should have an influence on another topic:

6th The inflation. At the beginning of the year, the ECB and left-wing economists tried to appease the fact that rising prices are a temporary phenomenon, no cause for concern, no reason to change course in terms of monetary policy. But this assessment was premature, as current figures show. And further adversity threatens: It is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to fill vacancies.

Developers are hard to come by, as we have had to experience at the Handelsblatt Media Group. Data experts, but also waiters, parcel carriers and cashiers are running out. The worries about a wage-price spiral are more than justified. We got to the heart of the problem with the title “People-No Economy”.

7th This year, for the first time, Handelsblatt has had two women in its chief editor, Deputy Chief Kirsten Ludowig and Digital Director Charlotte Haunhorst. The two colleagues not only got off to a strong start, they are also part of a larger, long overdue movement: never before have more women been recruited at board level in German corporations than in the past few months. The Handelsblatt will support these top performers even more intensively over the next few months. With portraits, interviews – and the “Female Allstars Board” award.

8th. But I don’t really like to look back – I prefer to look forward. I’ve always thought more about the future than about the past: a team of authors has a team of authors who will look like the world after Corona, which trends will change our lives in the next few years and which technologies you should pay special attention to for the current Friday edition of the Handelsblatt.

The big analysis is also a prelude to our forward-looking reporting for next year. We will deal even more intensively with the question of which innovations will move the economy and how new technologies can help with the green restructuring of industries. Because in this field there is a huge opportunity for Europe in particular.

9. Which brings us to one of the most read stories of the past year: The big report on the morning routines of managers. I also belong to this kind of early riser who try to do some sport in the morning, to meditate briefly. But none of this is anything against people like the historian Yuval Noah Harari. He meditates for two hours a day, as he said on my podcast the other day. It helps him to see the world with different eyes – and to come to rest.

With this in mind, I hope that you will also find the opportunity to relax a little – with or without meditation.

Finally, I would like to thank you very much for your loyalty and the editorial team for doing great things in 2021. Special thanks go to my colleagues who will be holding the position for the next few days. Because the Handelsblatt is also at your service around the clock from our Düsseldorf and New York newsrooms between the years to keep an eye on both the situation on the markets and movements on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Let’s hope it stays calm there.

Sincerely,

Your Sebastian Matthes

PS: I have a very special tip for you for the holidays: Handelsblatt Crime, the award-winning podcast series on white-collar crime, is entering a new round. In the first season, Handelsblatt editors had explained the Wirecard scandal. At the start of the new season, among other things, it is about the biggest tax robbery in history, the cum-ex scandal.

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