Last month, BMW’s new chief executive, Harald Krueger, fainted on stage at the Frankfurt Auto Show on Tuesday. Krueger collapsed as he was commenting on BMW’s latest models during a news conference. The BMW chief returned to work after he spent most of a week of recovery. “He’s back at work and feeling 100 percent fit,” a BMW spokesman said last month.
Now, for the first time since the unfortunate incident, Krueger opened up and explained the situation to German media. “I’m fine now,” Krueger said. “In Frankfurt I hadn’t fully recovered from a couple of intercontinental trips and I really shouldn’t have presented in the first place.”
He goes further to explain how he felt after the fainting incident. “Well, it wasn’t very nice that it happened live – in front of more than 300 journalists and running cameras – but I was also disappointed that I didn’t get to show what our team had prepared for the press conference,” Krueger added.
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The BMW boss emphasizes the support he’s received from his colleagues and also the advice given by doctors. “The doctors advised me to recover at home for a few days – and I did,” Krueger stated. “What was great was the tremendous support I received: from managers, who told me that it could just as easily have happened to them or did in fact happen, just not quite as publically. Managers are only human too, after all.”
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Lessons learned for the future? “[..] I learned that I need to focus more on what is most important. And I am making sure that I have enough of a balance between work and my personal life.
Krueger and BMW are preparing for 2016, a year of celebrations – 100th anniversary of the brand – which will include some exciting new BMW Group production cars and concepts.
