Emotional event with customers, partners, and companions in Heidelberg
Heidelberg, July 21st, 2025 – 30 years of cbs Corporate Business Solutions – the global consulting firm celebrated its special anniversary with a festive evening at the Heidelberg Congress Center with 250 invited guests, including customers, partners, companions, and friends. The celebration, themed “Back to the Future – An Evening with cbs,” was attended by company founder Harald Sulovsky, the founders of the Dortmund-based parent company Materna, Dr. Winfried Materna and Helmut an de Meulen, SAP CEO Christian Klein, and numerous renowned customers and global market leaders from industry.
The company has developed from a start-up into a leading consulting firm with 1,700 employees, a global presence, and a comprehensive portfolio. CEO Rainer Wittwen and Managing Director Holger Scheel took to the stage to look back on cbs’s 30-year history, accompanied by historical images from the various decades.
In their speeches, they also paid tribute to founder Harald Sulovsky, who developed the business idea three decades ago, led the consulting firm for 26 years, and passed the baton to his successors in 2021.
Sulovsky joined the company in 1995 from SAP, where he had managed international corporate projects. This experience convinced him that global projects needed to be approached differently in the future: in a process-driven, structured, and methodical manner. “I always wanted to be an entrepreneur,” recalls Sulovsky. “Tarek Kramer and I felt that we needed to realize our idea outside of SAP. After all, SAP primarily develops software, and we wanted to advise industrial companies,” the founder explains. The company thus started out under the name “microsap business solutions” in a basement in Rauenberg (Rhein-Neckar district). “Our first customers came to us through personal networks. We had to do a lot of persuading, especially in the beginning, and it was a long road to establishing a strong position in the market.”
Dr. Winfried Materna praises cbs’s achievements as a consultant
cbs has been part of the Materna Group since 2005. For founder and supervisory board member Dr. Winfried Materna, this partnership was a stroke of luck: “cbs is our most important subsidiary. cbs has great customers, dedicated employees, and very good earnings. Anyone who hires cbs receives top-notch consulting services. The company has been delivering on this promise of quality for 30 years. Looking at the current management team, I am confident about the future.”
SAP CEO Christian Klein was also in attendance. In his speech, he praised cbs as a long-standing and important partner in the Walldorf-based company’s ecosystem and highlighted its unique consulting approach: “cbs always focuses on the customer and their individual challenges.” Klein also mentioned the human factor: “cbs attaches great importance to its corporate culture—that is an important key to success.”
At the end, Managing Director Stefan Risse also thanked the numerous customers for their loyalty to cbs. Company representatives from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland had traveled to the celebration. “We are grateful to be able to work for the most impressive companies in the world. It makes us proud to be consultants to global market leaders,” said Risse.
The emotional evening concluded with thanks to all of cbs’s partners and companions. Once again, the founder was in the spotlight. “The founding idea of ‘Corporate Business Solutions’ has carried us for 30 years,” emphasized Managing Director Holger Scheel, before the three managing directors, representing the entire cbs team, thanked Harald Sulovsky for his life’s work to the applause of the audience: “Without you, Harald, we would not be here today and would not be working in this exceptionally attractive and successful company, which has long since become a global player.”
