Dr. Max Scheidt

Max guides leadership teams at The Octopus Principle — and runs ProCom Automation as managing director at the same time. That simultaneity is no accident; it's the foundation of his work: he still sits at the same table as his clients. More than 20 years as a managing director taught him one thing: growth rarely fails on the plan, it fails on what goes unspoken in the leadership team — dynamics that build up beneath the day-to-day and eventually block further development. That's exactly where he works. The Octopus Principle is the framework he co-developed for it: it combines two decades of entrepreneurial experience — building, international growth, crises, fresh starts — with training in Systems Psychodynamics at INSEAD. So he works not on symptoms, but on what truly limits growth. The companies he guides grow fast — some faster than their leadership structures; he helps close that gap before it becomes a problem. Stations: Managing Director, ProCom Automation GmbH (since 2023); Executive Master in Change, INSEAD (2022–2023); 20 years Managing Director, ProCom GmbH (2002–2021); Dr. rer. pol. and Diplom-Wirtschaftsingenieur (RWTH Aachen & University of Karlsruhe).