With Priv­i­lege Comes Responsibility

Berlin – a city full of his­to­ry, full of change, and full of respon­si­bil­i­ty. Benedikt Assies knows this all too well. Grow­ing up in a fam­i­ly busi­ness, he is now active­ly involved in social and cul­tur­al projects. In our inter­view, he shares why social com­mit­ment is not a ​“nice-to-have” for him, but a fun­da­men­tal duty.

Hi Benedikt. You are a new share­hold­er at PHI­NEO. Please intro­duce yourself.

Hi, I’m Benedikt Assies. I’m from Berlin and grew up in a fam­i­ly busi­ness. Today, I lead the New Busi­ness divi­sion in our fam­i­ly office, which includes every­thing out­side our tra­di­tion­al core business.

What exact­ly do you do?

Our roots lie in out­door adver­tis­ing. How­ev­er, we have since expand­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly into ven­ture cap­i­tal. We also run our own ven­ture stu­dio and have a broad port­fo­lio. We invest in var­i­ous projects — not only for eco­nom­ic suc­cess but also in cul­tur­al and social ini­tia­tives. Fur­ther­more, we sup­port projects with a pos­i­tive impact, espe­cial­ly in Berlin and the sur­round­ing area.

Why is that impor­tant to you?

I believe in fos­ter­ing new ideas that cre­ate pos­i­tive change. That’s exact­ly what PHI­NEO does, which aligns per­fect­ly with my own con­vic­tions. I met Andreas Rick­ert through var­i­ous NextGen net­works I am part of. We con­nect­ed imme­di­ate­ly and shared sim­i­lar views. Lat­er, he approached me and asked if I would be inter­est­ed in join­ing PHI­NEO as a share­hold­er. They want­ed a younger voice in the group — some­one bring­ing a fresh per­spec­tive. That’s how it all start­ed. More­over, PHI­NEO focus­es on the same soci­etal issues I care about. I see an oppor­tu­ni­ty to act as a catalyst.

What top­ics are those?

For exam­ple, ensur­ing that cap­i­tal and exper­tise are strate­gi­cal­ly applied for social impact. Also, giv­en the cur­rent cli­mate, pro­tect­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues. I feel that many of the things I have learned and con­sid­er right or wrong are being ques­tioned today. That deeply con­cerns me. I want to con­tribute to pro­vid­ing more clar­i­ty. It’s not just about secu­ri­ty — though that’s a big word — but about reli­a­bil­i­ty. I hope we can re-estab­lish sta­ble ref­er­ence points peo­ple can rely on.

Does that make you a philanthropist?

Ulti­mate­ly, it’s about uphold­ing a set of val­ues, and in that sense, I def­i­nite­ly see myself in this role. I stand up for what I believe in. But ​“phil­an­thropist” is a big word. I just like to be engaged and want to use the oppor­tu­ni­ties I have.

Still, you approach your engage­ment strate­gi­cal­ly. Do you have three tips?

First: Just look around — there are so many valu­able projects that deserve sup­port. The only real ques­tion is: What inter­ests me? Sec­ond: Be mind­ful when choos­ing orga­ni­za­tions to sup­port. Don’t just trust blind­ly. This aligns with PHINEO’s mis­sion — take a close look at what’s behind an orga­ni­za­tion and how it oper­ates. Good inten­tions don’t always trans­late into good exe­cu­tion. Imple­men­ta­tion mat­ters. Third: Don’t com­pro­mise your own val­ues. It might sound sim­plis­tic, but if you find a project you want to sup­port, don’t let oth­ers deter you. There will always be crit­ics, but if you believe in the impact of your sup­port, go for it.

Is this your per­son­al def­i­n­i­tion of social responsibility?

Yes. This issue is cru­cial, espe­cial­ly in the cor­po­rate con­text. I believe entre­pre­neur­ship car­ries social respon­si­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in today’s world, where many feel pow­er­less. We need to speak up about rel­e­vant top­ics and take action — both as pri­vate indi­vid­u­als and as busi­ness­es. I grew up in Berlin, and I love this city with all my heart. There are so many things here worth sup­port­ing that it’s impos­si­ble to ignore the need for engage­ment. If you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute — and this is key — you should take it. That’s why I don’t see it as a ​“nice-to-have,” but as an essen­tial part of cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty. My com­mit­ment stems nat­u­ral­ly from my envi­ron­ment and the val­ues I was raised with.

Does the new gen­er­a­tion nat­u­ral­ly feel a stronger sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty when it comes to engagement?

I think the val­ues and issues we grew up with were hard-won by the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion. We were born into a world where many things — such as equal­i­ty and inclu­sion — are tak­en for grant­ed. Sup­port­ing these caus­es is there­fore often a nat­ur­al reflex for us. I have played Amer­i­can foot­ball for years. My team con­sists of peo­ple from all cul­tures and back­grounds. Through that, I have learned that diver­si­ty and inte­gra­tion are sim­ply nor­mal. Unlike pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions, we didn’t have to learn to accept these things — they were always part of our real­i­ty. At the same time, we didn’t have to build busi­ness­es from scratch. We were born into a cer­tain priv­i­lege, and with that comes auto­mat­ic respon­si­bil­i­ty. It’s not enough to sim­ply enjoy this priv­i­lege — we must use it wise­ly and make some­thing mean­ing­ful out of it. But I also see that pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions are expe­ri­enc­ing a shift. Giv­en the cur­rent polit­i­cal land­scape, more and more peo­ple are decid­ing to take action rather than just watch. This devel­op­ment shows that social engage­ment isn’t a mat­ter of age — it can be a col­lec­tive movement.

Are there any obsta­cles pre­vent­ing you from engag­ing as much as you’d like? Whether as a gen­er­a­tion or as entre­pre­neurs’ children?

I believe where there’s a will, there’s a way — in all areas. Even if the say­ing ​“every lit­tle bit helps” sounds a bit blunt, but it’s true. No one has to change the world alone, but every­one can con­tribute — regard­less of whether they are an entre­pre­neur or not. Vol­un­teer­ing often starts small, like tak­ing on cashier duty at a sports club event. But even seem­ing­ly small con­tri­bu­tions can have a big impact on the imme­di­ate community.

Thank you for the conversation!