Peter Ambrus

“Life motto? I’m not really fixed on that. With each stage of life, other goals come into focus. But I always want to live up to my own principles – a kind of inner mirror,” emphasizes Peter Ambrus. Peter has been a Schoberian since 2012. Today, as Managing Director and Chief Legal Officer, the fully qualified lawyer takes care of all legal issues of the Schober Information Group. So customers don’t have to worry about data protection. In addition, Peter has been one of the three company owners since summer 2021 as a result of the management buyout. Legal issues have accompanied him over the past years – always in combination with the business side. What shaped him? Hungary, Bad Cannstatt, Jura, Schober, sports and always water. But one after the other.

From Pécs to the Neckar

Peter Ambrus was born in Pécs in southern Hungary, and his native Hungarian is still familiar to him today. With one exception, however: “For me, legal language is exclusively German, so I hardly know the Hungarian terminology,” he remarks. At the age of four, the family moves to Budapest, and at 14 he goes to Germany with his parents. Work in a Hungarian cultural institute brings the family to Stuttgart. Peter goes to school here, returns to Budapest at the age of 18, and graduates from high school. But the connection to Germany and specifically to Bad Cannstatt never breaks again. Soon he will be back.

Water polo and then law in Tübingen

In Bad Cannstatt on the Neckar (not “in the cauldron”), everything finally falls into place perfectly. “Basically, I have faith in the world – everything is good in the end, and that’s how it was here,” Peter recalls. But it’s not a no-brainer: “If you want to achieve something, you need perseverance, you have to work hard, build skills and commit to your goals.” And he applies himself and works hard – in sports as well as in his studies.

Thus, he is under contract in Stuttgart with SV Cannstatt as a semi-professional water polo player. The (almost) professional sport finances life and law studies in Tübingen. In 2006, the water polo players from Cannstatt actually become German champions. “That was a great moment, but also a sad one,” he recalls, because all of a sudden all of the goals have been achieved. He turns his attention to his studies, specializes in environmental law and completes his studies in Tübingen.

The year 2012

This is followed by the traineeship and then quickly into professional life. In 2007, a small Stuttgart law firm is the entry point for him as a lawyer. Instead of environmental law, Peter is primarily involved in corporate and tax law, as the firm has a strong focus on business law. “That opened up whole new fields for me,” he recalls, the experience providing the necessary tools for the next steps. In 2012, he yearned for something new: “I didn’t want to work in a law firm anymore and thought to myself that as a corporate lawyer, you’d certainly see more than just lawsuit-happy clients. I was right – and to this day I’m very happy about that decision, which brought me straight to Schober.” As an in-house lawyer, he starts at Schober Holding, which at this point is a think tank, consulting unit and implementer of internationalization. “It’s a paradise for lawyers: lots of topics, lots of new things, lots of opportunities if you like to roll up your sleeves and create something,” he says.

Someone who (likes to) set his own frame

This is exactly his field, because Peter likes to work his way into new tasks and feels “at home everywhere and in different worlds”. And he has no fear of contact with new subjects or with other people. At some point, the German water polo champion with Hungarian roots moves into management, learns the operational basics and becomes one of the managing directors of the Schober Information Group. For Peter Ambrus, finally taking over the business as a shareholder within the framework of a management buyout was the opportunity to “consistently continue the path he had already taken on his own initiative.” Self-determined and at the same time a team player, he emphasizes the harmonious interaction with the other two shareholders as an important success factor.

udo and the irresistible value proposition

Asked what Schober’s “irresistible value proposition” is to its customers, Peter says (quite precisely, as one might expect from a lawyer): “Schober helps its customers to find and eliminate weaknesses in their own database and data processing. This creates substantial added value in many respects – marketing, sales, data protection. Foremost among these is our universal data orchestration (udo) because it automates and simplifies many very complex things.”

Peter himself is primarily involved in data protection issues and resolves them before customers even come into contact with them. “That reduces the risks, because you can rely on udo. And it makes marketing and sales easier, because you could also describe udo as ‘data protection as a service,’” he says with a wink and then takes in the big vision: “We want to help shape digitization as the fourth industrial revolution by supporting our customers in their further development. You can count on Schober.”

Create useful

And outside Schober? “I spend every free minute with family and sport in all its forms”. What would be his greatest private wish, we ask, and he says: “I would like to offer my daughter every opportunity so that she can find her own way and realize her dreams. For myself, I would like us to achieve our goals here at Schober and thus lead the company into an exciting future together with our employees.”