General Terms and Conditions of Membership “PULSE“

General Terms and Conditions of Membership “PULSE“
of Handelsblatt Media Group GmbH & Co. KG, Toulouser Allee 27, 40211 Düsseldorf

Thank you for your interest in becoming a member of PULSE. PULSE enables you to get to know women in decision-making positions in different industries who actively promote and decide on topics and projects.

Below we present our terms and conditions of membership. Please take a moment to read them. You will find all the important information on membership requirements and PULSE services.

§ 1 Requirements for membership

All natural persons (private individuals, f/d) who have reached the age of 18 and hold a management position with a focus on a medium-sized or large company, can become a PULSE member. As PULSE aims to enable women in these leadership positions to exchange ideas and build a network, we ask for this information when registering and reserve the right to verify it if necessary.

§ 2 Membership application, decision on admission

2.1 Membership applications can be submitted by anyone who fulfils the requirements according to § 1. After receipt of your application documents, an internal PULSE committee decides on the membership. The criteria are

fully completed registration form
employment in an operational medium-sized company (at least 10 employees) or large company
management position, at least 2nd management level (senior director, division manager)
management responsibility, at least 5 direct reports or team leadership of at least 15 employees,
long-lasting leadership experience (at least three years)
on recommendation of a member: female scientists or experts, self-employed, applicants working in smaller companies (start-ups, “Ich-AGs”) with potential for development
in transition: in the case of career changes, if the aforementioned criteria were fulfilled in the old position and are prospectively fulfilled in the new position as well

We will inform you of our decision approximately 6 weeks after receipt of your application documents.

2.2 With the acceptance as a PULSE member you receive personal access data (email address and password). You can edit these in your user profile. Please keep your access data strictly confidential. It may not be passed on to third parties under any circumstances.

2.3 In order to increase the interest in an exchange with you and to increase your recognizability, PULSE gives you the possibility to complete your profile with further information about your work, your company, your interests and your goals. Please note, however, that this profile data is visible to all PULSE members. For data that you wish to keep confidential, use the “PULSE Connect” format.

§ 3 Duration of membership, expulsion, consequences of termination

3.1 The membership begins with the notification of the access data, which we will send you after receipt of your membership fee (see § 5) and has a term of one year each. If the membership is not terminated with a notice period of 14 days to the end of the term, it will be renewed for 12 months at a time. To cancel your membership, you can send us an e-mail (service-pulse@handelsblattgroup.com) or go to the cancellation page, which you can access from the PULSE homepage.

3.2 If a change occurs during your membership, you for example change your company or position within your company, you must inform us promptly. You can take your membership with you to your new position. However, an extension of your membership is dependent on the continuation of the membership requirements (see § 2), which we will check again if necessary.

3.3 Membership may be terminated by expulsion. An internal PULSE committee shall decide on an expulsion at the request of a member or if we learn of a reason for expulsion in some other way. Reasons for expulsion are serious violations of our PULSE criteria, in particular a violation of our Code of Conduct (§ 4), deception about the existence of the admission criteria (§ 2) or a disclosure of access data to third parties. Before an expulsion, we will request your statement, unless a resulting delay is not justifiable for us.

3.4 In the event of termination of your membership, for whatever reason, we will block your access. We will store your data for a period of six months as a precautionary measure, within which time the data may be made active upon resumption of membership. In the event of an expulsion, we will store the data until the issues (including any litigation or prosecution) surrounding the expulsion have been resolved.

After our retention period has expired, your data will be irretrievably deleted. Therefore, if you wish to restore your membership, you must do so within the six-month period.

§ 4 Code of Conduct

4.1 PULSE is intended to facilitate a free, protected exchange between women in leadership positions. This requires a high degree of openness and trust and, above all, confidentiality regarding the information exchanged in our forums, groups or during our events. We expect the protected space that PULSE offers its members to be taken seriously and therefore provide for immediate expulsion if an exchange within PULSE is used

to use the information thus obtained against the person making the statement or to discredit her,
to enter into anticompetitive agreements via PULSE,
to use the information commercially, for example for your own journalistic/editorial purposes.

We also immediately exclude members if we learn that they have registered with PULSE using false information.

4.2 The recording of live chats, streams, discussions, lectures or other formats offered via PULSE is not permitted.

4.3 We encourage open and critical communication at PULSE. Nevertheless, we expect appropriate interaction to take place at all times. Insults, stalking, discriminatory statements, defamation or other inappropriate forms of communication can be reported to na-schmidt@handelsblattgroup.com. These reports will be dealt with by us and may lead to expulsion.

§ 5 Membership fee

5.1 Membership of PULSE costs 2000.00 €/member/year for members from medium-sized companies and scientists/experts as well as self-employed persons. For members from large companies the membership fee is 3,000.00 €/member/year. The membership fee for members in transition is 900,00 €/member/year. We reserve the right to adjust the membership fee in the event of a renewal to market conditions at our reasonable discretion (§ 315 German Civil Code). For members in the founding phase (six months after the launch of PULSE) a reduced membership fee of 1,500.00€ or 2,000.00€ applies depending on the company size.

5.2 With the admission decision, you will receive an invoice from us for the membership fee, which is due for payment within two weeks. Likewise, we will send you an invoice for the membership fee due upon renewal of the membership before the membership expires. If payment is not made on time, you will receive a reminder by e-mail setting a deadline. If we do not receive payment by the deadline, we will block your account until the membership fee has been paid.

§ 6 Services of PULSE

6.1 PULSE facilitates a variety of networking events that are adapted to current day political and economic circumstances and can therefore vary in frequency and format from year to year. The formats available through PULSE are

PULSE Teams Tenant: Meetings in a dedicated PULSE Microsoft Teams environment for the purpose of exchange on current political or economic events
PULSE Events: Regular events, seminars and themed beats on current and strategic approaches
PULSE Connect: Participation in a private and exclusive group within PULSE for exchange in small groups of approx. 10 people on strategy topics incl. moderation (see point 6.2)
PULSE Newsletter Regular information on political and economic events with a special focus on your industry/industries and position
Digital pass: PULSE membership includes a digital pass to the online editions of Handelsblatt and WirtschaftsWoche
Management Campus Participation in a free eLearning Journey via the relevant HMG platform

In addition, PULSE enables a change of perspective at any time through chat and video conferencing possibilities among the members.

6.2 PULSE aims to enable exchange (also moderated) between members in small groups with different participants. In order to ensure the greatest possible diversity of sectors, PULSE is entitled to assign participants to different groups. Membership therefore does not include any entitlement to be liaised with specific other members. Similarly, PULSE membership does not “automatically” lead to networking with all other members.

§ 7 Processing of personal data

7.1 Participation in PULSE requires the processing of your data both by us and by Microsoft Team. We have set out the scope of our data processing in our data protection policy, which you can also access and save here: https://pulse.handelsblattgroup.com/en/privacy-policy/. You have consented to this data processing with your application. You can revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future. To do so, simply send an email to service-pulse@handelsblattgroup.com. In this case, however, participation in the PULSE services is only possible to a limited extent or in some cases not at all.

7.2 Participation in PULSE services also requires that we send you information by e-mail about events, seminars or external events that may be of interest to you. We generally use the e-mail function for this purpose. However, it may happen that we use the e-mail address you provided when registering. Invoices are always sent to this e-mail address.

7.3 We use the email address you provided when registering if you register for our newsletter. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time (see point 8.1); in this case, the remaining PULSE services remain available without restriction.

§ 8 Amendment of the Membership Rules

8.1 We reserve the right to adapt these provisions to current requirements, for example if we change our services or if new legal conditions arise. We will inform you about these changes at least four weeks before they come into force. If you do not agree with the changed conditions, you can cancel your membership until the changes come into force. In this case, there will be no refund of the membership fee.

8.2 If we discontinue PULSE in whole or in substantial part, you will be refunded your membership amount pro rata to the services already provided (duration of the remaining term of a membership). You retain the right to prove that the refund is unreasonable.

§ 9 Revocation Rights

9.1 You have the right to revoke your membership within 14 days without giving any reason. The revocation period is 14 days from the day on which you receive notification from us that you have been accepted as a member. In order to exercise your right of revocation, you must inform us, i.e. Handelsblatt Media Group GmbH & Co. KG , P.O. Box 10 11 02 D-40002 Düsseldorf, telephone number +49 211 887 3602, e-mail: service-pulse@handelsblattgroup.com by means of a clear declaration (e.g. letter sent by post, fax or e-mail) of your decision to revoke your membership. To comply with the revocation period, it is sufficient that you send the notification of the exercise of the right of revocation before the expiry of the revocation period.

9.2 Consequences of revocation

If you revoke your membership, we must reimburse you for all payments we have received from you, including delivery costs (with the exception of additional costs resulting from the fact that you have chosen a type of delivery other than the cheapest standard delivery offered to us), without delay and no later than 14 days from the day on which we received notification of the revocation of your membership. For this repayment, we will use the same means of payment that you used for the original transaction, unless expressly agreed otherwise with you; in no case will you be charged for this repayment.

9.3 Special note

If you have requested that your membership should commence during the revocation period, you must pay us a reasonable amount corresponding to the proportion of the services already provided by the time you notify us of the exercise of the right of revocation with regard to your membership compared to the total scope of the services provided for in the contract.

§ 10 Warranty, liability

10.1 We offer our services on the basis of current technical and legal framework conditions. We can therefore not assume any warranty or liability for undisturbed availability. We therefore exclude any liability for data loss, access disruptions or other impairments resulting from the use of PULSE, unless otherwise regulated below.

10.2 If your claims are based on an intentional or grossly negligent act on our part, we are liable in accordance with the statutory provisions. The same applies in the event of injury to life, limb or health, in the absence of a warranted characteristic, fraudulent misrepresentation or in cases of mandatory liability, e.g. under the German Product Liability Act.

10.3 In the event of slight negligence, we are only liable in the event of a breach of an essential contractual obligation (essential is a contractual obligation which is mandatory for the fulfilment of the contract and on the fulfilment of which each party may therefore rely). In these cases, the claim for damages is limited to a foreseeable, typically occurring damage.

10.4 In all other respects, our liability, including for loss of data, is excluded.

§ 11 Final Provisions

Membership shall be governed by the law of the Federal Republic of Germany with exclusion of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and the regulations on international private law. Please note that we have decided not to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before consumer arbitration boards. You can find the link to the OS platform here: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr We also do not participate in these proceedings.

Düsseldorf, Status 09/2023