Nicola Brüning served as the head of the BMW Group’s representative office in Berlin for over a decade, where she was the key spokesperson coordinating the automotive company’s stakeholder network across politics, ministries, embassies, and business associations. Before joining BMW, Ms Brüning built her career as a journalist, reporting for national and international media on business and politics. She is fluent in English, French, and Spanish. In April 2021, Nicola Brüning founded Startup Mobile4Minds, a company dedicated to developing innovative mobility solutions for urban and rural areas in collaboration with policymakers, associations, municipalities, and industry partners. Beyond her entrepreneurial activities, Nicola Brüning advises executives on strategic positioning and leverages her extensive network to foster lasting stakeholder connections.
Perspectives on Leadership, Sustainability, and Change: An Interview with Nicola Brüning
In your work at the intersection of business and politics, what do you see as the most urgent barrier to embedding sustainability into long-term corporate strategy?
One of the most urgent barriers to embedding sustainability into long-term corporate strategy is the inertia of large, tradition-rich industries such as the German automotive sector While there is a clear understanding of importance of sustainability, these companies ofte operate within deeply entrenched business models, supply chain structures and a strong focus on cost optimization. Decision making ca be slowed by complex governance layers and the constant balancing act between shareholder expectations and environmental commitments. On the political side, regulatory frameworks – for example the EU’s evolving climate and circular economy legislation – are often ambitious but can also be fragmented or inconsistent in their implementation timelines. This creates uncertainty for long-term investment planning. The challenge is not a lack of vision, but the difficulty aligning short-term financial imperatives, internal transformation processes and shifting policy requirements into coherent, forward looking strategy – and doing so quickly enough to remain competitive in a global very fast moving market.
How can organizations move from performative diversity initiatives to real structural change in leadership and staff representation?
My advice: Stop treating diversity as a branding exercise and start treating it as a business-critical transformation. That means changing who makes decisions, not just who’s in the marketing photos. Tie leadership incentives directly to measurable diversity outcomes. Remove structural barriers in recruitment and promotion and accept that real change will be uncomfortable – especially for those who have long benefited from the status quo. If diversity is embedded in power structures and not just in HR programs, it will be performative.
What’s one unexpected habit or mindset from your career that you now consider essential — even if it seemed small at first?
I used to think the fastest way to make things change was to charge ahead with big ideas and energy. Early in my career especially in large, traditional organizations I often found myself outpacing the system – and in environments with endless layers of multiple teams – that just mens you end up running alone Over time I learned that the real skill is to slow down, map the processes and identify where those are, who decide. In big corporations it is rarely about convinging everyone at once; it’s about building the right coalitions, one step by time. It feels less dramatic than a big launch, but it’s far more effective – because your ideas don’t just make noise, they survive the system an actually take root.
