Roman Weiss, CFO of Cybergroup International, began his friendship with lifelong business partner Steven Baumgaertner as a teenager. Distributors | Must Read His company doesn’t even give clients a choice, he said, instead presenting only the more sustainable options available through his suppliers. “We really teach our customers,” Baumgaertner tells me later. “For the same budget, they should buy less – but better stuff – instead of just wasting budget for the cheap, shitty items.” At the dinner, two execs from major American distributors say it’s not their role to impose ethics but simply to deliver what the client wants, quickly and with room for profit. This is a traditionally capitalist sentiment, of course, part of the mindset that makes America’s promo industry perhaps twice as large as promo in the European Union. Cybergroup’s method is harder. It requires a more bespoke approach to client service and to do some tedious homework on suppliers: Trust and verify. This comes at a monetary cost that Baumgaertner and Weiss, the CFO, freely admit the company has yet to recoup. But both believe it will pay off in the long run. The same willingness to do difficult things, sacrificing immediate results, has been felt in the company’s attempts at international expansion. It is wildly successful in Germany, but overseas growth has been slow going. Cultural differences with would-be U.S. clients have been a source of frustration for Baumgaertner. All told, the company brought in about $50 million in 2023, and its sales have more than doubled in a bounce-back from the pandemicmarred 2020, earning it PPAI 100 High Marks in the Growth category to go along with its High Marks, naturally, for Responsibility. Clients include the likes of Porsche, Audi and Deutsche Bahn, the German railway. Kjell Harbom, an industry stalwart in Europe, says, “If you come to Steven or his company and say, ‘We need a thousand pens,’ they say, ‘Sorry, give us your marketing plan for the next 12 months and we will tell you what you need. Don’t ask us for pens.’ “Big companies, that’s heaven for them. They don’t have the small customers. They have the big customers, and the big customers are really keen about sustainability.” Securing huge accounts creates the opportunity for a more focused approach to customer service. “He knows his customers so well that he knows how to offer the right article for their company, for their purpose, for their campaign,” says Petra Lassahn, director of Germany’s industry trade show, PSI. “He is full of ideas. He’s a maker. And he’s very professional, very much into details; he knows everything he’s doing very well.” Baumgaertner is the face of the company, but no one can do it all alone. Cybergroup employs roughly 215 people worldwide, including about 100 in Germany. Weiss has been the company’s 1A from the beginning. The two met as teenage classmates during the early ’90s and made their first money together by creating and selling class slogan T-shirts to graduating students. The two have grown up, started families and become more independent over time. “We’re still close,” Weiss says. “It’s just different. I also think we have not changed a lot in our personalities. We’ve changed in our lifestyles, and we changed everything around, but he’s still the sales guy and I’m still the numbers guy, and that was pretty much what we decided in my grandpa’s basement.” Weiss explains that they’ve avoided major conflicts thanks to a mutual understanding that on any issue, the last call belongs to the person ultimately responsible. The biggest clashes have been about expansion. As the revenue leader, Baumgaertner wants to add clients. But Weiss makes the point that even now, the PPAI • JUNE 2024 • 55
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