FAQHow did Magee transition from German politics to the private sector?

The challenge, the set of questions, are the same. My job with the majority party Christian Democrats in the Bundestag was to help their leadership establish and develop more and better contacts in Washington DC, to help them understand how politics in the U.S. works, the historical context.

By 1995, when I began in the Bundestag, I had lived in Germany for a total of eight years, was fluent in the language, had focused in my Master‘s degree program in Berlin on post-war German history, had significant work experience, including as a co-trainer in a Bonn-based intercultural management institute preparing German managers to work in the U.S.

I recognized the value in explaining to Germans political developments in the U.S. from the American perspective, but in the language and categories of thought of the Germans. I was a political translator.

It was a very unique experience, my five years in the Bundestag. I experienced German domestic politics and German-American transatlantic relations from the inside. There came a time, though, when I realized that if you want to affect necessary change in society via politics, you have to strive for power, run for political office. Secondly, if politics, then American politics. I am an American.

So, although the learning curve, the insights, were unique, it was time to apply it to the private sector. From 1984 until moving to Berlin in the Fall of 1988 I had worked in the telecommunictions sector, most of which as a self-employed reseller of hardware and software solutions in Philadelphia and Washington, DC. Business was not foreign to me.

So, in 1998 three major transatlantic combinations took place. Daimler acquired Chrysler. Deutsche Bank acquired Bankers Trust. Siemens acquired Westinghouse. The Majority Leader‘s office connected me with all three. I went to Siemens in Munich and immediately began to support their integration efforts. And although I left Siemens to establish the Magee Company after three years, Siemens has continued to engage me without interruption since then.