Typically, headhunters help other companies find the right leaders. Often the customers are family-run medium-sized companies who need help with their search when they hand over management tasks to managers outside the family for the first time. For many it is not easy, especially when the family tradition has lasted for several generations. The personnel consultancy Kienbaum has now dared to step into such a new era and opened its top management level for the first time to a top manager outside the family. Although Fabian Kienbaum is still a member of the family at the head of Germany's largest HR consultancy, the 37-year-old entrepreneur, who took over the business three years ago from his father Jochen,has brought in Bibi Hahn, an experienced HR consultant, as co-boss. Since August they have formed a dual leadership team. 54-year-old Bibi Hahn was previously the head of Germany for the American personnel consultancy Korn Ferry. The dual leadership should also embody to the outside world what one preaches to the customers: more diversity.

Tillmann Neuscheler

Editor in business.

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The business of personnel consultants has changed a lot in the past few years. In the past, Kienbaum was known to the public primarily for its large job advertisements in the national daily newspapers, with which the company looked for specialists and executives for customers. With them, Kienbaum had grown strongly in the 1990s and 20 years ago even rose to become the market leader among personnel consultants in this country. Then career portals such as Xing and LinkedIn emerged, which are now involved in the placement of middle management positions. Because they make it a little easier for HR managers to find good people, some people forego the help of intermediaries - especially in middle management, which is important for Kienbaum. And in the most prestigious segment, the search for top managers ("Executive Search"),pushed large international HR consultancies such as Odgers Berndtson, Egon Zehnder, Korn Ferry, Heidrick & Struggles and Russell Reynolds onto the German market.

"A time of upheaval"

It wasn't easy for Kienbaum. Even though the company has 26 offices on four continents, Kienbaum still generates around 80 percent of its sales in Germany. The company lost business, closed some offices, parted ways and put itself on a downsizing program. While sales in the heyday of 2008 were 128 million euros, they are currently only around 75 million. The industry was actually looking up during this time. According to figures from the Federal Association of German Management Consultants (BDU), sales in the personnel consultancy industry in Germany have more than doubled over the past decade. Around 65.000 positions in this country are filled annually with the help of personnel consultants - according to the association, the consultants can charge an average fee of around 25 percent of the gross annual salary of the placed position. Ten years ago it was around 33 percent, Kienbaum still gets that much, but the fees have come under pressure overall. According to their own statement, the Kienbaum consultants are actively looking for positions with an annual salary of 120,000 euros or more.

“The decade was a time of upheaval for us,” says Fabian Kienbaum, “with a lot of measures that took time, but the bottom line was that they had lasting positive effects”.

Today, Kienbaum achieves more than half of its turnover outside of the traditional search for personnel, for example with remuneration advice, organizational advice or performance measurement and personality analyzes.

The former handball Bundesliga player also sees the difficulties caused by the pandemic in a sporty way: "After the corona dip, things are noticeably upwards, we are on the way with a tailwind and have high goals for 2023 and 2024," says Fabian Kienbaum in an interview.