DISCOVER HER POWER: WITH UTE & HELENA ROTHE OF BADEN COLLECTION

Text & Interview: Kaddie Rothe, GOALGIRLS*

The most interesting businesses right now are not being built by people who fit the system.
They are being built by people who refuse to be discouraged by it. A GOALGIRLS* column about women building businesses differently.

Sometimes the next generation does not need to start something new. Sometimes they look at what generations of women before them have built and ask: What could this become next?

For GOALGIRLS* founder Helena Rothe, leaving the creative industry meant choosing a surprising new chapter: joining her mother Ute at BADEN COLLECTION – and taking the family business into its fourth generation. And something seems to be working. Together, mother and daughter are giving BADEN COLLECTION a very literal second spring and see it flourish in the company’s success. Not because one generation replaced the other. Because they chose to learn from each other.

DISCOVER HER POWER: WITH UTE & HELENA ROTHE OF BADEN COLLECTION

Ute and Helena.

MEET THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER DUO DOING SUCCESSION DIFFERENTLY

BADEN COLLECTION is a family-run B2B partner for interior, home decoration and gifts. Ute knows the business inside out: sales, organisation, customers and people. Helena brings something new: brand, digital marketing, social media and her own taste. She is bringing the collection online, introducing pieces that speak to a younger aesthetic and open BADEN COLLECTION to an entirely new audience. Not old school versus new school. Legacy, upgraded.

OUR POWER IS THE GENERATION GAP

Kaddie: “Where does your power come from?”
Ute: “I know this company. I know our customers, our people and our business. After all these years, I don’t need to make every decision complicated. Sometimes you just know what works.”
Helena: “And I question exactly that. Sorry, Mum. My power is looking at something that has worked for 20 years and still asking: Could it work even better? Could it look different? Could we tell the story differently?”
Ute: “And annoyingly, sometimes she’s right.”

WHAT IF SUCCESSION WAS NOT ABOUT REPLACEMENT?

Kaddie: “If your business was a movement – what would it destroy?”
Helena: “The idea that taking over means either preserving everything or changing everything.”
Ute: “You need to know what is worth keeping – and be brave enough to change the rest.”
Helena teaches Ute about online business, content and a new generation of customers. Ute teaches Helena sales, organisation and people management. Succession becomes an exchange, not a replacement.

DELETE THIS NARRATIVE
Kaddie: “Which assumption about women in business should be deleted?”
Helena: “That joining your family business means going backwards. I’m using everything I learned creatively to take something with history somewhere new.”

WHEN POWER SHIFTS GENERATIONS
Kaddie: “What would be different if more women led companies?”
Ute: “Women don’t all lead the same way. Helena and I certainly don’t.”
Helena: “Exactly. Female leadership doesn’t need another stereotype. It needs more versions of itself.”

BADEN COLLECTION’s most successful year did not happen because Helena came in and changed everything. And it did not happen because Ute refused to.

It happened somewhere in between.
Experience met curiosity.
Legacy met new energy.
Mother met daughter.
And instead of passing a company from one generation to the next, they are leading it together.

GOALGIRLS* is an international FLINTA* creative collective and agency. Follow us on: @heygoalgirls

Would you like to be featured next?

Visibility grows when we share it – so here’ is how you take this stage:

1. Share a post from @badencollection or your thoughts on this interview in your Instagram story.
2. Tag in your story: @badencollection, @heygoalgirls

This stage belongs to women who claim it.