Oktoberfest Business Partners

Virginia Economic Development Partnership

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) is the state economic development authority for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Created in 1995, VEDP collaborates with local, regional, and state partners to encourage the expansion and diversification of Virginia’s economy. VEDP works to accomplish these objectives through a variety of activities, including marketing and lead generation; business retention, expansion, and attraction; trade development; business intelligence; competitive benchmarking; site development; performance-based incentives; and talent solutions. VEDP has offices in Virginia, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Allianz

The Allianz Group is one of the world's leading insurers and asset managers serving private and corporate customers in nearly 70 countries. Allianz customers benefit from a broad range of personal and corporate insurance services, ranging from property, life and health insurance to assistance services to credit insurance and global business insurance. Allianz is one of the world’s largest investors, managing around 749 billion euros on behalf of its insurance customers. Furthermore, asset managers PIMCO and Allianz Global Investors manage about 1.8 trillion euros of third-party assets. Thanks to systematic integration of ecological and social criteria in their business processes and investment decisions, Allianz is among the leaders in the insurance industry in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. In 2024, over 156,000 employees achieved total business volume of 179.8 billion euros and an operating profit of 16.0 billion euros for the Group.

Audi/ Volkswagen Group of America

Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (VWGoA) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers and the largest carmaker in Europe. VWGoA houses the U.S. operations of a worldwide family of distinguished and exciting brands including Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, and Volkswagen and is the sole importer and distributer of Bugatti and Rimac vehicles in the U.S. Volkswagen Group of America Chattanooga Operations, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of VWGoA, operates a state-of-the-art assembly facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, while VW Credit, Inc. (doing business as “Volkswagen Financial Services”), another wholly owned subsidiary of VWGoA, provides financial services and innovative mobility solutions.. VWGoA’s headquarters are in Reston, VA. The company has approximately 10,000 employees in the United States and sells its vehicles through a network of approximately 1,000 independent dealers.

Barnes & Thornburg

More than 800 legal professionals in 23 offices across the country collaborate seamlessly at Barnes & Thornburg to field the right team for you. As one of the 100 largest law firms in the United States, Barnes & Thornburg put their collective experience across legal disciplines to work so you can conduct business in today’s changing marketplace.

With recognized leaders in every area of law, Barnes & Thornburg provide consistent, top-notch service across the board. You’ll find Barnes & Thornburg at the center of the toughest deals, biggest cases, and most complicated legal situations.

Barnes & Thornburg's goal is to engage in relationships, not transactions. To earn and maintain your trust, Barnes & Thornburg learns your business so they can deliver imaginative solutions for both short-term, pivotal moments and long-term strategic needs. Most importantly, Barnes & Thornburg are reliably responsive and provide honest, transparent advice that puts your interests first.

Barnes & Thornburg takes ownership of your legal problems and relentlessly push through legal complexities, challenging facts or stubborn stakeholders. With determined dedication to your success and informed ingenuity, Barnes & Thornburg work tirelessly to achieve the best result for your business.

Bayer

Bayer is a Life Science company with a more than 160-year history and core competencies in the areas of health care and agriculture. With their innovative products, they are contributing to finding solutions to some of the major challenges of our time.

A growing and aging world population requires an adequate supply of food and improved medical care. With Bayer's innovative products, we are contributing to finding solutions to some of the major challenges of our time. With life expectancy continuing to rise, Bayer improves quality of life for a growing population by focusing its research and development activities on preventing, alleviating and treating diseases. Bayer is also making an important contribution to providing a reliable supply of high-quality food, feed and plant-based raw materials.

Bayer's goal is to create value for their customers, stockholders and employees, while also strengthening the company’s earning power. They are committed to operating sustainably and addressing their social and ethical responsibilities.

The Bayer Group is managed as a life science company with three divisions – Pharmaceuticals, Consumer Health and Crop Science. As of December 31, 2024, the Bayer Group comprised 291 consolidated companies in 80 countries.

Lufthansa Group

The Lufthansa Group is an aviation group with operations worldwide. It plays a leading role in its European home market. With 101,709 employees, the Lufthansa Group generated revenue of EUR 37,581m in the financial year 2024.

The Lufthansa Group consists of the business segments Passenger Airlines, Logistics, MRO and Additional Businesses. The Passenger Airlines business segment includes, on the one hand, the network airlines Lufthansa Airlines, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and ITA Airways. As part of a multi-hub strategy, they offer their passengers a broad range of flights from their hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna, Brussels and Rome. Lufthansa Airlines also has close relationships with the regional airlines Lufthansa CityLine, Lufthansa City Airlines and Air Dolomiti as well as Discover Airlines, the Lufthansa Group’s holiday airline. Edelweiss, the leading Swiss holiday airline, has a close relationship with SWISS.

Eurowings also belongs to the Passenger Airlines business segment. This airline provides a comprehensive range of point-to-point connections for short- and medium-haul destinations, in particular from German-speaking countries.

Schaeffler

The Schaeffler Group has been driving forward groundbreaking inventions and developments in the field of motion technology for over 75 years. With innovative technologies, products, and services for electric mobility, CO₂-efficient drives, chassis solutions, and renewable energies, the company is a reliable partner for making motion more efficient, intelligent, and sustainable – over the entire life cycle. Schaeffler describes its comprehensive range of products and services by means of eight product families: from bearing solutions and all types of linear guidance systems through to repair and monitoring services. With around 120,000 employees and more than 250 locations in 55 countries, Schaeffler is one of the world’s largest family-owned companies and ranks among Germany’s most innovative companies.