THE ATHENA GROUP AG
IMPRESSUM
Trading as Athena Associates – a business and brand strategy consultancy. The associates focus on developing innovative strategies and compelling brands, ensuring their implementation through employee engagement.
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Owners and management: Mariska Praktiek and Rudolf Rodenburg
Commercial description: Consulting and supporting services in the areas of strategy, organisation, corporate culture, brand strategy, human resources and sustainability.
Commercial registration: CH-0203049.071-1
Tax registration: CHE-176.346.201
Court of Justice: Handelsgericht des Kantons Zürich
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Registered office: Bünishoferstrasse 241, 8706 Meilen, Switzerland
Bank details:
Credit Suisse (Schweiz) AG, Paradeplatz 8, 8070 Zürich, Schweiz
The Athena Group AG
IBAN: CH36 0483 5311 3223 0100 0
BIC: CRESCHZZ80A
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Disclaimer
Liability for content
The content of this site was created with the highest care. However, no guarantee can be given for the correctness, completeness and topicality of the content.
Liability for links
This site may contain links to external, third-party websites, the content of which cannot be influenced. Therefore, no liability is assumed for this third-party content. The respective provider or operator of the pages is always responsible for the content of the linked pages.
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Data protection
Please find our data protection policy here (currently in German only): www.athena-academy.net/datenschutz
TERMS & CONDITIONS
CONSULTING
FOR THE ATHENA GROUP AG's
CONSULTING SERVICES BY ATHENA ASSOCIATES
Thank you for choosing The Athena Group AG. In this document, when we mention "we," "our," or "us," we are referring to The Athena Group AG and its dedicated team. When we say "you" or "your," we are referring to you in your role of the Client or representing the Client.
We are excited to partner with you and help guide your company towards its strategic goals. Before we embark on this journey together, it's important for both parties to understand and agree to the following terms and conditions.
They are specifically tailored to our strategy consulting services focused on Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measures (OGSM). These Terms and Conditions have been written to complement and enhance our general Terms and Conditions, which are also available on our website. Please note that by engaging with us for OGSM-related strategy consulting, you're agreeing to these specific terms in addition to our overarching general Terms and Conditions. Together, and including the proposal, they form the complete agreement under which we'll deliver our specialised services to you.
1. Acceptance of Terms
By enlisting our consulting services, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions. Enlisting The Athena Group AG is marked by either your signing of the proposal detailing “the project” or the client's explicit go-ahead in writing to commence work. If you do not agree with any part of these terms and conditions, please let us know before starting to work with us.
2. Scope of Services
We will provide business strategy consulting services as outlined in our proposal. Our services are tailored to your specific needs and may include, but are not limited to, market analysis, strategic planning, specifically the content of the OGSM-model, employee engagement, and consulting services.
3. Fees and Payment
Fees for our services will be set forth in our proposal. Upon the initiation of the project, which is marked by either your signing of the proposal or your explicit go-ahead in writing to commence work, 50% of the total fee as detailed in our proposal is due. This initial payment is for Stage 1 – Preparation, Objective and Goals – as outlined in the proposal. The payment represents a mutual commitment to the successful partnership between The Athena Group AG and you, the Client.
As we progress to Stage 2, which includes the remaining part of the project as outlined in the proposal, the remaining 50% of the total fee becomes due. This payment guarantees mutual commitment for the continuation of our collaboration, to reach completion of the project.
Late payments of 30 days or more incur an additional charge of 10% of the total of the invoice excluding VAT.
4. Confidentiality
Both parties agree to keep all proprietary information, trade secrets, and any non-public business information ("Confidential Information") in strict confidence. Confidential Information shall not be disclosed to any third parties without prior written consent.
5. Intellectual Property
All materials, reports, documents, and other intellectual property created by us before, during and after the course of the engagement remain property of The Athena Group AG. You are granted a non-exclusive licence to use these materials for internal business purposes only.
6. Limitation of Liability – Acknowledgment of Consulting Role and Limitation of Liability
We will provide our services with skill, dedication and care, consistent with professional standards. However, we cannot guarantee specific outcomes. It is important to recognise that the ultimate impact on your organisation depends on a variety of factors beyond our control. As such, the implementation of any advice, strategies, or OGSM-elements that we have helped you to create, is at your sole discretion, and you bear full responsibility for the outcomes of such implementations.
Therefore, The Athena Group AG or its employees or partners shall not be held liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or any other damages arising from or related to the use of our services. By hiring us, you acknowledge and agree that we are offering strategic advice and assistance with the objective to formulate the OGSM content only, and any decisions made, and actions taken in response to our advice are your sole responsibility.
7. Termination
Either party may terminate the project, as outlined in the proposal, for any justified reason, including if the other party breaches these terms and conditions and fails to correct the breach within a reasonable timeframe. Termination needs a written notice.
We want to highlight the strategic value of the work already embarked upon; therefore, when you terminate the project, the payment for the initial stage remains due once we have been engaged, just as the payment for the final stage remains due, once it has commenced.
In case the termination is initiated by us during Stage 1, the decision to either finish that stage of the project or withdraw immediately will be at our discretion. Should we choose to withdraw immediately, you will be entitled to a refund of the fees paid for this stage.
In case the termination is initiated by us during Stage 2, the termination is immediate, and you will be entitled to a refund of the fees paid for this stage.
8. Dispute Resolution
Any disputes arising from these terms and conditions will initially be addressed through friendly negotiation. If negotiation fails, disputes will be resolved through arbitration or in a court of law, subject to the laws of Canton Zurich, Switzerland.
9. Amendments
The Athena Group AG reserves the right to update these terms and conditions as necessary. However, we understand the importance of transparency and fairness in our client relationships. Therefore, should any amendments be made to these terms and conditions during the course of our mutual project, we will promptly inform you of any specific changes we wish to apply to your project. Continued use of our services after any such changes constitutes your consent to said changes.
If you do not agree with the proposed changes, we will evaluate the situation to determine the most appropriate course of action. This may involve completing the project under the original, unaltered terms and conditions, or terminating the contract. In the event of termination, see “7. Termination”
10. Contact Information
For any questions or concerns regarding these terms and conditions, please contact us at rudolf.rodenburg@athena-associates.net
TERMS & CONDITIONS
website use
These Terms and Conditions set forth the regulations for the use of the website of The Athena Group AG, located at www.athena-associates.net.
By accessing this site, you accept these terms and conditions.
The following terminology applies to these Terms and Conditions, the Privacy Policy and Disclaimer, and all Agreements: "Customer," "You," and " Your " refer to You, the person who registers on this Website and complies with the Company's Terms and Conditions. "The Company", "Ourselves", "We", "Our" and "Us" refer to our Company. "Party", "Parties" or "Us" refer to both the Customer and Ourselves . All terms refer to the offer, acceptance and consideration for payment required to carry out the process of our assistance to the Client in the most appropriate manner, for the express purpose of meeting the Client's needs in relation to the provision of the Company's specified services in accordance with and subject to the applicable laws of Switzerland. Any use of the above terminology or other words in singular, plural, upper and lower case and/or he/she or they shall be deemed interchangeable and therefore refer to the same.
Cookies
We use cookies. By accessing www.athena-associates.net, you have consented to the use of cookies in accordance with The Athena Group AG Privacy Policy.
Most interactive websites use cookies to retrieve user information each time they visit. Our website uses cookies to enable the functionality of certain areas and to make it navigation easier for visitors to our website. Some of our affiliate/advertising partners may also use cookies.
Licence
Unless otherwise stated, The Athena Group AG and/or its licensors own the intellectual property rights for all materials on www.athena-associates.net. All intellectual property rights are reserved. You may access the materials through www.athena-associates.net for your personal use, subject to the restrictions set forth in these Terms and Conditions.
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You may not:
Re-publish material from www.athena-associates.net
Sell, rent or sublicense material from www.athena-associates.net
Reproduce, duplicate, or copy material from www.athena-associates.net
Redistribute content from www.athena-associates.net
We do not warrant the accuracy of the information on this Website and do not guarantee its completeness or correctness, nor do we promise to ensure that the Website will remain available or that the material on the Website will be kept up to date.
Disclaimer
To the fullest extent permitted by law, we exclude all representations, warranties and conditions in connection with our website and the use of this website. Nothing in this disclaimer will:
Limit or exclude our or your liabilities for death or personal injury ;
Limit or exclude our or your liabilities for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation ;
Restrict our or your liabilities in a manner not permitted by applicable law, or
exclude any of our or your liabilities that may not be excluded under applicable law.
The limitations and prohibitions of liability set forth in this section and elsewhere in this Disclaimer: (a) are subject to the foregoing paragraph; and (b) govern all liabilities arising out of the Disclaimer, including liabilities arising in contract, tort, and breach of statutory duty.
As long as the Website and the information and services on the Website are provided free of charge, we shall not be liable for any loss or damage of any kind.
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©2024 by The Athena Group AG
Zurich - Barcelona
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data protection policy
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Your data belongs to you. We know that. That is why we, at The Athena Group AG, operating under the names Athena Associates and Athena Academy, based in Switzerland (hereinafter: The Athena Group), take data protection very seriously. We comply with the provisions of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applicable to Swiss companies and do everything we can to keep your data confidential. We have created this document so that you know what data we store and how we use it. Please contact us personally at any time if you have any questions.
Our privacy policy covers our website, our marketing activities and our relationships with prospects, customers, employees and suppliers and anyone else we deal with in the course of our business.
What information does The Athena Group collect about me?
We will only collect, process and use your personal data with your consent or where permitted by law. We will only collect, process and use personal data that is necessary for the performance and use of our services and that you provide to us voluntarily.
Personal data is all data that contains information about the personal or factual circumstances of a specific or identifiable person. This includes, for example, name, address, date of birth or bank details.
Other data collected for the purpose of course participation will be irrevocably deleted at the latest at the end of the course.
Website of The Athena Group
We collect information about how you use our websites. This includes information that your browser or device sends to our servers when you visit our website. For example, your browser or device may tell us your IP address and the type of browser and device you are using. Your browser may also tell us which page you arrived at our website from and, if applicable, the search terms you entered into a search engine that directed you to our website. We may use cookies and similar technologies to collect information about how you use our websites.
E-mail messages from The Athena Group and our newsletter
With The Athena Group newsletter, we intend to inform you about us, our offers and services and about our cooperation partners and/or their offers and services. In addition, we intend to inform you about national and international developments relating to our core topics of strategy, brand, culture, employee engagement and mindfulness.
When you register for the newsletter, we save your IP address and the date of registration. This storage serves as evidence in the event that a third party misuses your e-mail address and registers to receive the newsletter without your knowledge/that of the authorized person. E-mail messages sent by us via the external newsletter provider may contain a tracking pixel that tells us whether you have received the message, opened it or clicked on a link in the message. If you do not want this, you can stop receiving our newsletter. A link to unsubscribe can be found in every newsletter.
The Athena Group online advertising
We advertise online in a variety of ways, including displaying The Athena Group advertisements on Facebook or Google. We collect information about which advertisements are clicked and where the advertisements are displayed.
Buttons, tools and content from other companies
Our website may contain buttons, tools or content that link to services provided by other companies (e.g. Facebook button, XING button, LinkedIn button or Instagram button). When you see or interact with these buttons, tools or content, certain information may also be automatically sent from your browser to the other company. For more information, please see the relevant company's privacy policy. We try to limit these applications to companies with detailed privacy policies.
The Athena Group social network pages and login services
We operate our own pages on social networks (e.g. Facebook, XING or LinkedIn). You may also be able to log into a The Athena Group application or website using a social network account such as a Facebook account. We may collect information when you interact with our social network pages or use these login features.
Events by The Athena Group
The Athena Group organizes training courses, information events or other events at regular intervals. We usually take photos and/or videos and/or an internet live stream of the event. These can then be published and distributed on our website, in our newsletter or via our social media presence. Under no circumstances will these recordings be resold to third parties or used for commercial purposes other than self-promotion for The Athena Group or the event attended. By attending the event, you agree to the use of any recordings described. Of course, we ask the persons concerned for their consent beforehand and the material will be published without mentioning their names. If you do not agree, we will also visually anonymize the material.
Which tracking technologies are used on our websites?
Server log files
Our provider collects data about every access to our website and thus our web server. This data includes the destination, date and time of access, amount of data transferred, success of the access, previously accessed page (referrer), the user's operating system, the IP address and the requesting provider. This data is only collected for statistical evaluations for the purpose of operating, securing and optimising the website and is not further linked. The server logs are only subsequently checked for a specific purpose if illegal use is suspected.
Google Analytics
Our websites use Google Analytics, a web analysis service provided by Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountainview, California, 94043 USA (“Google”). Google uses cookies that enable an analysis of your use of the website. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website (including your IP address) is transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there. Google may transfer this information to third parties or use it in any other way so that the possibility of the data collected in this way being directly linked to a person can no longer be ruled out. We would therefore like to point out that this website uses Google Analytics with the extension “anonymize” and therefore your IP address is only processed in an abbreviated form. This means that direct personal reference is excluded. This anonymisation code addition ensures further processing in accordance with data protection law. You can also object to the installation of cookies by downloading a so-called deactivation add-on for your browser.
Further information can be found in Google's privacy policy: www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/
Social Sharing
We use so-called social sharing plugins from Meta and Facebook on our website. You can recognise this, for example, in our blog by the respective company logos on the buttons for sharing content. When you click on the button, a direct connection is established to the servers of the respective provider and it is communicated which specific website on our website you are currently visiting and which content you are sharing. If you are logged in to this provider as a registered user while visiting our website, the provider can assign the visit to your profile. Simply visiting our websites may be sufficient for this. If you share or like content, this will be made visible to other people in this social network in accordance with the privacy settings you have made. In addition, these providers reserve the right to pass on summarized statistics on user activities to third parties, i.e. other users and partners, advertisers and associated websites.
We have no influence on the scope of the data that these providers collect when you share or like content and therefore ask you to find information about the collection, sharing and use of your data and the data protection information here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/policy.php
Embedded videos
Some pages on our website may contain embedded videos that are hosted by external streaming service providers such as YouTube. Where possible, we embed these videos in "extended data protection mode". Please note, however, that data is transmitted to the external provider when a video is played at the latest.
What does The Athena Group use my data for?
We need personal data from you for the following purposes:
• to contact you
• to subscribe to / unsubscribe from our newsletter,
• when processing orders or contracts,
• as part of order data processing,
• as part of the supplier management process.
Your personal data is collected, processed and used solely for the purposes for which it was collected. We regularly review our data collection, storage and processing practices to ensure that we collect, store and process as little personal data as possible (data minimization principle).
Does The Athena Group share my personal information?
We work with companies that help us conduct our business. These companies provide services such as web hosting or sending email messages for us. In some cases, these companies have access to certain personal information about you in order to provide services to you on our behalf. These companies are carefully selected and are not permitted to use your information for their own purposes. We may also share your personal information in the following cases:
• if you have consented to the disclosure
• if we are required to disclose information in response to a subpoena, court order, or other legal requirement or obligation
• if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to prevent or respond to a crime, defend our websites against attack, or protect the property and safety of The Athena Group, our customers and users, or the public
• if we merge with another company or are acquired. In these cases, your information will likely be one of the assets transferred.
What are cookies and how does The Athena Group use them?
Like most websites, The Athena Group uses cookies and similar technologies to ensure that our websites function properly and to learn more about our users and their likely interests.
No security-related or personally identifiable information - other than your IP address - is stored in cookies, sessions, and log files. Furthermore, these files cannot transmit viruses, spy on data on your computer, or send emails without your knowledge. This data is not linked. The data is evaluated for statistical purposes in order to be able to optimize our websites and our offers.
If you do not want cookies to be used, you can block or restrict their use in your browser.
Where does The Athena Group store my personal information?
Your personal data is generally stored by The Athena Group in Switzerland. In the following cases, data may be transferred across borders: Our newsletter is sent via a server within the European Union. Tracking data from analytics and social media tools is also transmitted to trustworthy organizations outside the EU. This applies in particular to Google and Facebook, which have committed themselves to using data in accordance with the law via Privacy Shield.
How can I check or update my personal information?
You have the right to correct, block and, if necessary, delete your stored personal data at any time. Please send us a message to rudolf.rodenburg@athena-associates.net . If we provide you with information, our security measures require us to ask you for proof of your identity.
Will I receive advertising from The Athena Group?
You will only receive an electronic newsletter, for example, if you have given us your consent to use, process and transmit your personal data for marketing and market research purposes. You can revoke this consent at any time without observing a specific form or deadline with effect for the future.
Will this data protection policy be changed?
We adapt the content of this data protection policy from time to time in order to ensure protection in the event of new legal requirements or technical developments. It is therefore advisable to read this declaration again at regular intervals. We will explain on our website what has changed and when.
Where can I go if I have questions?
For any questions or concerns regarding this data protection policy, please contact us at rudolf.rodenburg@athena-associates.net