We are often asked how we came up with the name ESTURION. The answer has less to do with marketing than you might expect, and more to do with an animal that has been demonstrating for more than 200 million years how adaptation works in practice: the sturgeon.
The search for the right metaphor
When we founded our consultancy in 2023, one question came up early on: how could we convey what we actually stand for? Sustainability consulting is an abstract field, often overloaded with jargon and regulatory complexity. We wanted a name that conveyed the opposite: something natural, something enduring, something that makes sense at a glance.
So we looked to the animal kingdom. Many animals symbolise strength, speed or foresight, but none of them really matched what we experience with our clients every day. In the end, we landed on a fish that seems unspectacular at first sight but, on closer inspection, is an impressive success story of evolution: the sturgeon.
The sturgeon: a survivor with 200 million years of experience
The sturgeon belongs to the family Acipenseridae and is one of the oldest bony fish still living on Earth. The earliest ancestors of today's sturgeons can be traced back to the age of the dinosaurs, and some fossil finds even date back more than 200 million years. The sturgeon has survived continental drift, ice ages, mass extinctions and profound climate change, long before humans even existed.
What makes the sturgeon special in our eyes is not just its age, but its ability to adapt. Many sturgeon species are anadromous: they spend part of their lives in the salt water of the oceans and migrate into the fresh water of rivers to spawn. This ability to switch between completely different habitats and adjust to very different environmental conditions is anything but common among fish. It makes the sturgeon one of the most adaptable creatures we know.
On top of that comes an enormous life expectancy of up to 100 years, in some species even more than 150 years, combined with a size that makes it one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. An animal, then, that does not rely on quick wins but on endurance over very long periods of time, and that is precisely why it is still successful today.
What fascinates us about the sturgeon
For us, this biology carries a message that reflects exactly what we want to achieve with our consulting. Today, mid-sized companies face the task of adapting to changing environmental conditions and societal expectations, whether due to climate change, new regulatory requirements or changing expectations from customers and supply chains. This is not about sustainability for its own sake, but about the ability to keep succeeding under new conditions.
That is exactly what the sturgeon embodies. It shows that survival over extremely long periods is not a matter of strength in the classic sense, but of adaptability. Those who can adjust to changing conditions without losing their substance are best placed to remain successful in the future. That is the mindset with which we guide mid-sized companies through the transformation process: pragmatic, focused on what matters and with a clear view of the business benefit.
From sturgeon to ESTURION
The German word "Stör" is not well suited as a brand name, nor is the English translation "sturgeon". While searching for a variant that fits in substance and also sounds good, we came across the Spanish word for sturgeon: esturión. With a slight adjustment, it became ESTURION.
The name carries the animal's story within it without making it obvious, and that was important to us. Those who know the background will recognise a principle that we live every day in our work with mid-sized companies: adaptation is not a loss of identity, but the prerequisite for remaining successful over the long term.
That is exactly what we want to achieve with ESTURION for our clients: sustainability not as an additional burden, but as a strategic lever that makes companies resilient, for today and perhaps for the next 200 million years ;-)