Markus Schäfer still sometimes drives past his old student digs in Weiterstadt. He is usually en route from Stuttgart and is always in a hurry. But occasionally there is enough time for a short detour from the motorway to the neighbouring town of Darmstadt – especially during the asparagus season. “There was a large asparagus field right outside my window when I was a student there.” Three decades later, the TU alumnus sometimes stops to buy the tasty vegetable. As a student, he had neither the taste nor the money for it. ”I ate a lot of ready meals and pasta,” he smiles. His alma mater is also often present in his day-to-day working life. In one of life’s strange coincidences, the son of his former professor of automotive engineering is now one of the directors in his management team. “Whenever I see him, I think of Darmstadt,” says Markus Schäfer. The man’s father, Professor Bert Breuer, was a leading light in his field, and Markus owes him a great deal. Vehicle technology was already his main interest, even then.

The man who has been Mercedes Chief Technology Officer, responsible for research, development and procurement, since 2019 comes from a small town in the economically underdeveloped Sauerland region. As a schoolboy, he travelled abroad for the first time to England on an exchange programme and got to know a different culture. He also trained in athletics at competition level. “I had the urge to expand my horizons early on,” says Markus Schäfer. The best way to do that in his teenage years was on a moped. His best friend's father owned a repair shop. The two boys spent many hours “optimising” their mopeds there. But independence through technology costs money. Schäfer's parents worked for the post office. They supported him, but he had to fund his passion for two-wheelers himself. “I worked in the holidays. That really shaped me. I learnt early on to work hard to be able to afford things.

His friend's father lent him challenging books on vehicle technology, which Markus devoured. ”I was good at maths, chemistry and physics at school. I loved this combination of science and practical application.“ At 16, his professional aspirations were clear: ”I wanted to study automotive engineering and be a test driver at Porsche.“ After finishing school, the motorbike friends went on a university road trip around Germany together. Markus Schäfer calls this his ”ABCD selection“. The friends travelled to the university towns where it was possible to study mechanical engineering with a focus on automotive engineering. After Aachen, Braunschweig and Clausthal-Zellerfeld, “one sunny day we found ourselves in Darmstadt. The university was in the centre of the city, with two parks right next to it and the pedestrian zone close by.” The decision was made.

Markus Schäfer met his future employer, then known as Daimler-Benz AG, during his first student research project. “I worked in development – where I am now the boss,” he laughs. External internships provided great motivation and a “good stepping stone into my professional life”. He wrote his diploma thesis at Porsche in 1990 then applied for a trainee programme at Mercedes.

Schäfer has now been working for the same company for over 30 years. “I have always been active, always learning something new.” Mercedes had a presence all over the world – with cars, lorries, vans, luxury limousines and, in some cases at the time, even in aviation. “The variety was tremendous, and I explored everything.” In his late 20s, he became a project manager in Egypt. He set up a car assembly plant in the desert not far from Cairo. “Initially I was only supposed to build it, but then I also managed it for five years.” It was a formative time, both professionally and culturally. “The more time I spent there, the more enthusiastic I became.” His curiosity for another culture inspired him.

The company headquarters in Stuttgart clearly also saw this, as he was then sent to the USA for five years. As CEO, he was responsible for the expansion of the Mercedes-Benz US International production plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It was a complete contrast. “From the huge city of Cairo, with a population of 20 million, to the then still very rural American deep-south”. But over time, Alabama also became a second home for him. “We developed the plant and industrialised the predominantly rural region.”

Good work, he says, is recognised and rewarded at Mercedes. Back in Stuttgart, Markus became Member of the Divisional Board of Management Daimler AG for Mercedes-Benz Cars Production and Supply Chain in 2014. Since 2019 he has been a member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG and is Head of Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development. He has been responsible for global procurement there since summer 2019, and succeeded Niki Lauda as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd, which manages the Formula 1 team. The 59-year-old emphasises that hierarchy and promotion have never guided his thinking. “I was always interested in the job and in doing it as well as possible.” The challenge for him is “to show that you can push boundaries”.