The entrepreneur

“President? Okay, but only on my conditions.” When he was offered the job as President of the venerable Aachen-Laurensberger Rennverein e.V., almost 30 years ago now, Klaus Pavel answered à la Klaus Pavel. They certainly weren’t easy times back then, the management team was divided, the local press talked about a “struggle for power at the ALRV”, but it was predominantly also about the future alignment of the club: More marketing – yes or no? There are definitely better prerequisites for a new start, but Pavel did what he does best: He acted like an entrepreneur. Decisions were to be taken by the team as a whole, or as he put it: “We kept on discussing until we were all in agreement.”

The re-start was a success, the rest is history: Under Pavel’s presidency and with Frank Kemperman and Michael Mronz heading the team of full-time staff, the CHIO Aachen continually further developed. Huge investments were made, in the meantime the show is Germany’s biggest and in many people’s opinion best sporting event. In the year 2006, an unforgettable World Championships event was staged at the completely converted and modernised showgrounds at the Soers, which not only the equestrian world still talks about in awe. A World Championships that, by the by, didn’t end up in a financial disaster like all other comparable events, but which indeed wrote black figures. And which also made the showgrounds fit for the future. True to Pavel’s motto: Everything we do, we do it for the CHIO Aachen. Simply his way, the entrepreneur-like way.