|
Linhard Stepf has been involved with the Texas-European Business Summit since the beginning. As emcee for the 2023 event, his professional passions and long involvement give him a unique perspective on the event.
A twenty-year veteran of assisting companies with global expansion, Stepf was a natural fit for the summit from the beginning. Today, he works with Vistra, part of their team helping guide and smooth clients’ international expansion through a comprehensive suite of services including entity set-up, payroll, compliance, tax filings, and serving as employer of record for US companies looking to hire European talent without the commitment of creating a footprint on the ground. “In addition to my role as emcee, I will be bringing that knowledge and experience to the summit along with many other speakers. Because a lot of the companies attending the Texas EU-Business Summit are on the smaller side, information about these kinds of services can be really useful to them.” Vistra recently completed a merger with Asia-based Tricor, effective on January 1, 2024, creating a company with 9,000 employees active in more than 50 countries. Stepf is excited about the opportunity to help companies on an even larger stage.
For him, getting in on the ground floor during the Texas-European Union Business Summit’s inaugural year was the result of having the right position and the right friends. “I already knew Ben [Ramirez] and Mortada [Mohamed] with the World Affairs Council of Austin. And, at that time, with my previous employer, I was promoting the Frankfurt, Germany, region to US, Canadian, and Brazilian companies. So this idea of meeting with Texas companies looking to expand their footprint in Europe was very appealing to me.”
Involved with similar events around the US and around the world, Stepf explains that they benefit attendees in two main ways. First is their ability to impart a high volume of concrete, actionable information on multiple topics in a very short period. “In a couple of hours, you meet experts and get advice from various angles that helps you make decisions about ‘should I got to Europe and if so where?’” Just as important, if less frequently cited, is the opportunity these events create for crowd sourcing questions, and not only from speakers or panelists. “I’ve seen it so many times, someone asks a question and someone in the audience says ‘I had the same problem and this is how I solved it.’ Then they talk it out either in the panel or on a coffee break.”
Both of those benefits are especially helpful for the kinds of companies that typically attend the Texas-EU Business Summit. “Usually, they’re on the smaller side and at a point where their interest is focused on Europe,” Stepf describes, “they’re looking for a light footprint at first, often responding to a specific opportunity or a deal or two they’re looking to pursue. Maybe they want to hire one person and don’t want or need to set up a full-fledged entity.”
Stepf says he’s seen the summit grow and change in some constructive ways over the years. During the summit’s initial years, most companies attending were still very early in the exploration phase and were often very early-stage companies. “You had new companies that were doing well, had gotten some funding, and started asking themselves ‘Maybe our product would do well in other countries.’”
More recently, while still in the exploratory phase, the typical attendee is further along and already has their sights set on Europe. “They don’t always know where in Europe they want to go or how they want to get there, but there is a better understanding, and they know what they learn at the summit and the connections they make will help them get there.” Stepf suggests that efforts by Summit partners such as the World Affairs Council of Austin to provide information about European opportunities may be increasing the baseline knowledge and confidence with which companies are now coming into the summit.
While acknowledging there are a lot of things on the 2023 agenda that interest him, this year’s emcee admits what he most eagerly anticipates is the event itself “I haven’t been there since Covid, I’m looking forward to getting back in person.”
| 
