In October 2022, McFit founder Rainer Schaller had a fatal accident – leaving behind a leaderless leisure empire. What happens to a company when the parent suddenly disappears?
A man sits in a coach house in a Berlin backyard and talks about dachshunds. What does it mean when your boss calls you a “dachshund” and pinches your arm? Ronny Kindt had been racking his brains over this question for a long time. Until someone told him that Rainer Schaller, the boss, had a dachshund as a child. So he obviously meant well. At some point, Kindt had a dachshund tattooed on his forearm. A few centimeters away from the area where he was always pinched, the piercing of the tattoo would have hurt a lot more. And it already hurt.
Without Schaller, the founder of the fitness chain McFit, Kindt wouldn’t be who he is today: someone who has something to say in the company. An artist. Schaller pushed him to get the most out of himself. He taught him that the first idea is never the best. And when he wanted to push Kindt, he did the dachshund hold. Kindt never thought that Schaller would simply not come back one day.
Source: Stern
