Benjamin Pettermann

‘From an Austrian village to Moscow – To Russia with Love’

Benjamin first discovered his love of Russia at the age of 24. In the summer of 2000, he travelled from his small hometown in Austria to the metropolis of Moscow for an internship and then went on to spend a few weeks in a town on the Siberian border. During this time, he not only got to know the country better, he also met his wife. Benjamin finished his university studies in Construction Management and Engineering at the Fachhochschule Graz in 2009, with a thesis on Local Authority Procedures in the Russian Construction Industry. He then went on to apply this theoretical knowledge in Russia, working on-site for two different construction firms for a period of almost ten years.

In 2018, Benjamin first came across Deutsche Werkstätten Interior (DWI) and met the former Managing Director Daniel Neumann while working on the New Swiss Embassy project in Moscow. Inspired by this encounter he applied to Deutsche Werkstätten full of confidence and was hired immediately.

Benjamin remembers being thrown in at the deep end by his new employer: “A 600 square metre apartment in Saint Petersburg had to be completed in just five months including one month for planning. It was a Hercules task! The Principal had serious doubts that it could be done on time. In the final phase we had up to twenty installers working on site including additional manpower flown in from Germany, and yes, we succeeded! It was indeed a very stressful time, but an incredible success!” Benjamin is happy to be with Deutsche Werkstätten. It feels right on a personal level too, “for the son of a cabinet-maker to end up with this company – surely there’s no better place to be?!” In 2021, he took over the management in Russia.