AmCham Germany NextGen During Corona

The Covid-19 virus has extraordinarily affected our world, our personal lives as well as AmCham Germany’s very successful high-potential program “NextGen Initiative”.

After the drafting of a very promising new cohort 2020-21, it was planned to host this year’s kick-of NextGen Conference at Lake Starnberg in early August, when Corona hit. Since then, many companies have introduced restrictions on business travel including event participation, remote work policies, and office closures until the end of the year. In addition, federal and regional authorities continue to advice against the assembling of large groups for events. This situation will likely remain unchanged until the end of this year.

The continued risks and uncertainties regarding travel, the location, speakers and other program components proved AmCham Germany unable to guarantee both the health of the participants and staffers and a high-quality kick-off-event in August. Thus, the difficult decision to postpone the 2020 NextGen Cohort until next year had to be taken. The Kick-Off-Conference is now scheduled to take place at Lake Starnberg in early August 2021 at Lake Starnberg. Accordingly, the next drafting round for a new NextGen cohort will be postponed to fall / winter 2021 (instead of 2020).

Nonetheless, regular events with our NextGen participants and alumni continue to take place. A switch to digital events made it possible to test different formats like an E-Happy-Hour for networking and get-together, a Virtual NextGen Day with Michael Werz (Center for American Progress), that brought interesting insights into the current situation in the US and its implications for the Presidential Election in November, as well as a Virtual NextGen Workshop on Best Practices for Regional Chapter Events organized by NextGens from the Stuttgart Chapter, where NextGens gained valuable and very interesting insights into how to organize (digital) Regional Chapter (NextGen) Events themselves.

AmCham Germany looks forward to future events and wants to thank the NextGens for their commitment and support of the transatlantic relations in general and of AmCham Germany in particular! Together, we ensure AmCham Germany’s ongoing success and enable our members to participate more actively in our organization!

For more detailed information please contact:

Heather Liermann

Head of Department

Membership Engagement & Development