Lars Weber

Where do I come from?

I came to West Berlin from Lübeck with a few boxes and worked my way. In Kreuzberg without heating, at the Free University with sociologists and English scholars. At the University of the Arts, where I poked around in various departments and still ended up in advertising by visiting Hamburg agencies unannounced.

I was a copywriter and creative director at Springer & Jacoby and Scholz & Friends, both creative forges at the time, and later in London. Then freelance creative and lecturer.

I worked - also as a director - in Germany and England for many brands and their agencies. During that time, I had my own companies with various partners and founded an agency with Jochen Pläcking and Arne Klein, among others, which later brought us back together as partners at K'UP.

What drives me?

To be free for mental and real adventures. I have already achieved many goals: became a friend to my children, built wooden houses myself, written ten books (as L. van Wangger), been an award winning creative in advertising, made films, remained a (sceptical) entrepreneur. In my novels I am preoccupied with the question: Who can we be? Do we even have to become who we think we want to be? Isn't that presumptuous? Do we push ourselves too far, or is that precisely what is human about us? How can we overcome categorical, formulaic thinking?

At best, this can be indirectly applied to strategy, which often seeks formulas. But it leads to questions like: Is a company what it wants to be? Does it want the right thing? Is it capable of recognizing itself and creating meaning? Does it cross and respect the right boundaries? What do these boundaries look like? For example, do we need to create companies that act only for the non-human world? For animals, plants and the planet? For this we need breakthrough ideas, while we are often still consuming our energy in optimizing what we have. We need to strengthen imagination and thereby release action. This is important to me.

What is my strategy?

Test yourself thoroughly, then amaze yourself.