(On request I will try to write most of my post in English from now on)

So last week was our second Trainee Summit, this time in lovely Switzerland, outside of Zürich close to where the Octapharma Head office is located.

I have never been in Zürich before so on the way from the airport I took some time to stroll the city. It is so beautifully situated with the lake and the hills and some snowy Alps in the background.

View over Zürich

On the three day Summit the first day was devoted to Project Management. We had one of the project managers from our Vienna office joining us to give us an overview of the project management tools of XLPM. Since it was just a one day course the focus was on discussing different qualities of a good project manager as well as getting familiar with the different tools, words and documents of project management 

the Culture Map is a book about business culture in different countries which served as the basis for our discussions

Day two and three were spent discussing the themes of Business Culture in different countries and Situational Leadership. All of us trainees gave a presentation each on the business culture in the country we knew the best. Since we are such a diverse group we got to hear about business culture in Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, France, England as well as Russia and Brazil. As we will all visit and work at some of the other Octapharma plants and offices I think we all appreciated to get an inside view of what to expect when we get there.

Enjoying a break together

Between the lectures and presentations we got to spend a lot of quality time with each other enjoying the Hotel’s spa, nice dinners and the sunny weather that Switzerland offered this week. All in all we had a great couple of days together and I think we all got a great deal of insights on ourselves and on leadership that we take home with us to work with until the next summit.

Hope you all have a good week, Hanna

The beautiful view from the hotel