What people want to know about me.

Johannes Goering is an entrepreneur who has been bringing the right people together since 2007. Born in 1984 in Cologne, he lives with his family near Mainz, Germany.

For eleven years he ran a creative agency. Around a quarter of its revenue came through referrals, without him ever steering it. Since 2020 he has been building business owner circles as Executive Director Corporate Connections.

Today he shows business owners, in keynotes and in-house workshops, how to turn referrals into a system that the team runs, not the owner.

Not collecting contacts, but building spaces where the right people find each other and genuinely help each other move forward.

The result isn’t business cards but trust. And trust turns into referrals with substance.

It started in Melbourne in 2007. At 22, with no plan, Johannes built a community of strangers that eventually ran without him. The pattern has repeated ever since, just with more experience and more system.

Johannes Goering has been Executive Director Corporate Connections since 2020, together with Hardy Trenschok. He is responsible for launching new chapters, growing the community, sales, and the external presence of the brand in Germany.

He currently leads three active chapters in Mainz, Koblenz and Cologne. Düsseldorf is planned as the next location. The long-term vision is ten chapters with around 250 members in Germany within his region of responsibility.

In addition to his operational role, he represents CC Germany at international events such as the European Leadership Summit in Amsterdam and the Global Leadership Summit, where he has hosted as emcee in front of several hundred international guests.

Johannes Goering lives with his wife and two children near Mainz, Germany. From there, as Executive Director Corporate Connections, he leads the chapters in Mainz, Cologne and Koblenz.

His stages reach well beyond the Rhine-Main region: he gives keynote talks at chambers of commerce and marketing clubs, hosts CC summits in Europe and Asia, and speaks at entrepreneurial and Mittelstand events.

When he isn’t connecting people, he is usually on the move: long-distance running (half marathon and marathon), surfing with passion (especially in France, Indonesia and Australia), and regularly travelling around the world with his family. In 2023, he spent seven months in Indonesia, Vietnam and Australia.

No. He is an entrepreneur and a practitioner. He has built agencies and business owner circles, was a founding member of the BNI chapter Chagall in Mainz, which grew into the largest in the German-speaking world, and has been building Corporate Connections since 2020.

Networking training teaches you how to make contacts. Johannes works on what comes next: how your network, your clients and your partners become a plannable source of referrals.

No incentive schemes, no new network, built into processes your company already has.

Corporate Connections is a global business network active across four continents, 33 countries and 121 chapters. Around 2,000 members worldwide are owners, managing directors, shareholders and board members of companies typically with five million euros in revenue or more.

The German organisation has been largely run since 2020 by Johannes Goering and Hardy Trenschok and currently has chapters in Mainz, Koblenz and Cologne. Outside their region, there are further chapters in Nuremberg, Munich, Berlin and Leipzig.

Corporate Connections differs from classic business networks through three principles: only one seat per industry, meaning one member per sector per chapter. The meetings are structured around referrals, not business card exchanges. The community is international, giving German members access to business partners in over 30 countries.

Corporate Connections is aimed at established entrepreneurs: owners, managing partners, board members and managing directors of mid-sized companies. Typical company size starts at five million euros in annual revenue. 84 percent of global CC members run companies with five to 100 million US dollars in revenue, 16 percent above.

The network isn’t suited to freelancers looking for clients, early-stage startup founders, or employees without entrepreneurial decision-making power.

The right fit is someone who has already built something, who is looking for strategic alliances and real referrals among peers, and who is willing to give before they take. What matters is less the revenue figure and more the entrepreneurial mindset.

Corporate Connections Germany has active chapters in Mainz, Cologne, Koblenz and Nuremberg. The first three are run by Johannes Goering as Executive Director.

Further locations are being launched in Munich, Berlin, Leipzig and Düsseldorf. The long-term vision is 50 active chapters in Germany with around 1,500 members in total.

Each chapter has a maximum of 25 to 30 members, and only one member per industry is admitted. Those interested in visiting a chapter first meet Johannes Goering in a personal conversation before being invited to a meeting.

The path to a Corporate Connections membership begins with a personal conversation. Johannes Goering first meets every prospective member in a 30-minute call before any invitation to a chapter meeting is extended.

The conversation centres on four questions:

01 Offering: what you offer and for whom. Your role, your market, your clients.
02 Asks: who you are actively looking for. Clients, suppliers, multipliers, partners.
03 Challenges: the question on your mind when you walk to your desk in the morning.
04 Investments: where you plan to direct capital, time or energy in the coming months.

If your profile fits an available industry slot in one of the chapters, a meeting visit follows. A formal membership only happens after several visits and a decision on both sides. This process is intentionally slower than in classic networks, because CC isn’t built on volume but on fit.

Contact via johannes@johannesgoering.com.

Requests for keynotes, in-house workshops, talks or hosting go directly to johannes@johannesgoering.com.

Johannes Goering prefers entrepreneurial summits, Mittelstand conferences, business associations such as chambers of commerce and marketing clubs, and business communities with 30 to 500 participants. The workshop takes place at your company, with your team.

He speaks when he has something to say, not when he wants to sell something. A talk works when the topic truly belongs to the event.

Useful in your request: details about the event or company, the audience, the format you have in mind and the date. Johannes speaks fluent English and German.

His core keynote is Trust Opens Doors: why referrals don’t have to be luck, and how companies turn them into a system their team runs.

Two more keynote formats:

The Perfect Wave. Timing, patience and the right moment to drop in. Surfing as a metaphor for business decisions you can’t force.

The Marathon of Relationships. Why real networks aren’t built on sprints but on distance.

He also gives shorter talks on topics such as Those Who Give Win, Trust as the Hardest Business Factor and Open-Mindedness as a Competitive Advantage. Format and length adapt to the event, from 15 minutes to 60 minutes including Q&A.

Yes. Johannes Goering hosts two to three Corporate Connections chapter meetings per month in Germany, plus international formats.

In 2024, he was the emcee of the European Leadership Summit in Amsterdam with 100 international guests. In 2025, he hosted the Global Leadership Summit in Tokyo with around 700 participants.

His strength as a host lies in combining a journalistic background, interview experience with entrepreneurs, and the ability to have real conversations on stage rather than working through an agenda.

The format works particularly well for conferences, summits and panels that need more than a presenter.

Johannes speaks fluent German and English.

The direct route is an email to johannes@johannesgoering.com.

Relevant requests include chapter visits at Corporate Connections, keynote or hosting bookings, podcast invitations, and concrete collaboration ideas.

Pure networking requests without a clear reason are better placed on LinkedIn, where Johannes is reachable as Johannes Goering.

For media and press inquiries, the email address with a brief description of the request also works well. Johannes typically responds personally within a few working days.

A high-quality business network is built not on quantity but on substance. The most important principles from over 15 years of community building:

Give before you take. Anyone who shows up with a question before they have offered something doesn’t build trust.

Find structured spaces. Random encounters at industry events rarely lead to real connections. Structured formats like Corporate Connections create repetition, commitment and context.

Think in referrals, not contacts. A contact is a business card. A referral is a promise.

Be in it for the long run. Trust can’t be sped up. It grows in conversations, in repeated giving, in shared experiences.

Anyone who lives these four principles consistently has a different network after three years than most people have after ten.

Referral marketing means winning new business through recommendations from existing contacts rather than through cold outreach or advertising. For many mid-sized companies, referrals are the most important route to new clients.

Referral marketing beats classic acquisition for three reasons:

First, trust is paid forward. The referrer has invested their reputation. The new client doesn’t start at zero.

Second, the price war disappears, because a referral isn’t looking for the cheapest provider but for the right one.

Third, close rates are significantly higher, because the referred client is pre-qualified.

Most business owners get referrals by chance. A system turns them into a reliable growth channel that the team runs. That is exactly what Johannes works on in keynotes and in-house workshops.

Almost every mid-sized company gets recommended. Hardly any knows by whom, how often or why. Referrals happen, but nobody makes them happen.

Usually they depend on the owner: their contacts, their memory, their time. Once the owner is buried in day-to-day operations, the flow dries up.

A system turns this around. It draws on three sources: networks and associations, existing clients, and partners who serve the same audience. And it decides who on the team does what.

At Johannes’s agency, a quarter of revenue came through referrals without any steering at all. The real question is: what would a system make possible?

Open-mindedness.

This value grew out of a specific childhood memory, when Johannes witnessed for the first time someone shouting something racist after another person. Looking back, that was the moment when open-mindedness became a conscious counter-stance.

Today he carries this value in three dimensions:

Professionally, because Corporate Connections is an international network and on any given evening in Mainz, people from Taiwan, Turkey, Belgium and India might sit at the same table.

In family life, because his children are raised to be open, tolerant and curious, seeing, understanding and experiencing the world through many travels.

Personally, because he is convinced: the best ideas, referrals and connections grow where people are truly open to each other. Not transactional, not superficial, but with genuine interest.

Johannes Goering runs half marathons and long distances.

He also surfs regularly in France, Indonesia and Australia. For him it is a counterweight to business life: in the water the mind goes quiet, no emails, no decisions, just waves and timing.

Both are more than hobbies. They provide metaphors for entrepreneurship and referrals: running shows that what counts is not the sprint but stamina and rhythm. Surfing teaches you not to take every wave, but the right one.

Both experiences flow into his keynotes The Perfect Wave and The Marathon of Relationships.