40 Years of Entrepreneurship and Educational Idealism
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accadis Celebrates Its Success Story
On 1st October 1980, Gerda Meinl-Kexel founded a further-education
institution in Bad Homburg, Germany. It specialized in foreign language
teaching, word processing and organizational development. Consequently, she
called it FTO based on German words for these terms. Forty years later, it has
grown into the accadis Education Group - with an internationally acclaimed
university, a bilingual Preschool, Primary and Secondary School - and a total
of 1200 pupils and students.
"You
do need to be a bit naive or mad," the company founder in retrospect
assesses her decision at the time, "in order to leave the safe-haven of
civil servant status as an educator in order to go into business for yourself
in providing further career training. The assumption that the market had only
been waiting for Gerda Meinl-Kexel did not quite prove valid at the beginning.
"You had to fight your way through, be flexible, learn, improve and slowly
gain a foothold," adds the Managing Partner.
A successful start-up story
Today, the accadis success
story would probably be marketed as a successful start-up in the category ‘Female
Entrepreneurship’. The venture capital market was still underdeveloped in
Germany, but a modest inheritance formed the cornerstone of the accadis
enterprise for Gerda Meinl-Kexel. Concepts such as work-life balance were also
not yet in vogue. Hard work determined the everyday life of the founder both
back then and today. To this day, you can still receive emails from Gerda
Meinl's inbox even well beyond the wee hours. " Moreover," says Gerda
Meinl-Kexel, "I was lucky to always find the right partners - today we
would call it a network - who shared and supported the idea of a private
educational institution in Bad Homburg. Staff, corporate partners and banks -
their trust in the service that accadis provided was a prerequisite for the
impressive entrepreneurial development.
Milestones in an ever expanding portfolio
Based on this foundation, a
hidden champion in the field of education has emerged in Bad Homburg. As early
as the 1990s, a Bachelor's degree was awarded - which, at the time, the
authorities declared would never exist in Germany. Since the 2000s, work-study
programs have been offered, with the two Bad Homburg companies Fresenius and
Deutsche Leasing among the first and still the closest partners to date. In
2004, graduate programs were added to the academic portfolio. The crowning
achievement of a doctoral program - in cooperation with Northumbria University
in Northern England - has been part of the accadis portfolio since 2015. The
first doctoral candidate is currently about to graduate.
At the same time, there
have been significant developments in early childhood education. With the
university's move to Du-Pont-Strasse (now Am Weidenring), the accadis
International School moved into the existing building on the Bad Homburg Laternenfestplatz
- initially with a bilingual Preschool and an Elementary School. Eventually, a
bilingual Secondary School was added. The school had meanwhile followed the
university to the Bad Homburg Südcampus area. This also closed the remaining educational
gap to the university.
#ONEaccadis and the next 40 years in focus
As a successful entrepreneur, it is important
not to only look back during such an anniversary, but more so to look ahead.
The designated successor, Prof. Dr. Christoph Kexel, who has been a member of
the senior management team since 2010, is now in the starting blocks to take
the lead. This means that the company will remain in family hands, making it
the only university in Germany that is run as a family business. In addition,
accadis is the only vertically integrated educational company that offers a
range of courses from Preschool to doctoral programs. Under the slogan
#ONEaccadis, Prof. Kexel aims to bring the subsections of the accadis world
closer together, while continuing to expand all areas. More accadis Preschools
will be launched in the region, the number of pupils and students will grow, a
second sports hall will be built, and in order to train teachers and educators,
alongside the School of Business the university will establish a School of Education.
The international focus will be expanded with the increased recruitment of
graduate students from abroad, and the university's research focal points and
Institutes (Digital Business, Sports Management and Entrepreneurship) will be
extended. Thus, there is no lack of exciting new growth plans. This means that
for the first five of the next 40 years there is no probability of boredom for
both the accadis management team and its staff.