PRESS Review

Xellento’s part­ner Peter Alexan­der Rapp among the 22 most impor­tant execu­tive search con­sul­tants in the media indus­try
The mag­a­zine “Kress pro” (issue 2023/#09) inves­ti­gat­ed who awards top-tier posi­tions and which execu­tive search con­sul­tants should know the key play­ers in the media indus­try. Among the lat­ter: Xel­len­to part­ner Peter Alexan­der Rapp. Due to his long­stand­ing exper­tise in the media busi­ness, he has a sound grasp of the demands of lead­ing man­age­ment posi­tions.
The edi­to­r­i­al depart­ment talked to numer­ous pub­lish­ers, gen­er­al man­agers and deci­sion mak­ers in Ger­many, Aus­tria and Switzer­land. They inquired about names, expe­ri­ences and the man­agers’ judg­ment on execu­tive search con­sul­tants.
The issue can be ordered under https://shop.oberauer.com/medien/kress-pro/653/kress-pro-2023–09
Xellento’s Part­ner Dr. Matthias Kestler in the Han­dels­blatt

The eco­nom­ic boom is slow­ing; how­ev­er, SMEs are con­tin­u­ing to seek high achiev­ers. What to do? Han­dels­blatt edi­tor Anja Müller, team leader SMEs and fam­i­ly-owned busi­ness­es, describes the sit­u­a­tion as fol­lows:

Matthias Kestler notes “that there is no triv­ial solu­tion”. Cur­rent­ly, he has been focussing on the dif­fi­cul­ty to attract top tal­ents to rur­al loca­tions — a prob­lem faced by many SMEs. The head­hunter indi­cates that the demands of the sought man­agers have grown over time and “an eco­nom­ic down­turn will not low­er the expec­ta­tions”. Here­by, the remu­ner­a­tion is not a deci­sive fac­tor: “Relo­ca­tion is not depen­dent on a high­er com­pen­sa­tion; the realm of respon­si­bil­i­ty is the deci­sive fac­tor. This holds true for 98 per­cent of my can­di­dates.” There are more impor­tant things to life than a €5k increase. This said, one should keep in mind that the indi­vid­u­als Kestler seeks are already on a very high income. How­ev­er, he adds, there is a fur­ther cru­cial fac­tor: Inter­est­ing con­cepts mat­ter. Kestler says that “more than half of can­di­dates would imme­di­ate­ly sign a con­tract if it entailed a home office day on Fri­day.”

Read the full arti­cle

Xellento’s part­ner Kai Horten in a pod­cast host­ed by the Bavar­i­an state broad­cast­er: AI – and what is the role of humans?

What role do humans play? How do robots and AI change indus­try? Stephan Lina from the Bavar­i­an state broad­cast­er Bay­erisch­er Rund­funk posed this ques­tion to an illus­tri­ous pan­el com­posed of:

Lars Planko, SVP Oper­a­tions at Junghein­rich;
Dr. Fred­erik Zohm, Board Mem­ber R&D at MAN;
Jost Lam­mers, CEO Munich Air­port;
Dr. Jan-Hen­rik Ander­s­son, CCO Munich Air­port;
Dr. Gunter Beitinger, SVP Manufacturing/Factory Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion at Siemens; Judith Wiese, Board Mem­ber HR at Siemens

and our part­ner Kai Horten.

One of the con­clu­sions reached: It depends on the ide­al mix of human flex­i­bil­i­ty and AI. The ques­tion at the matter’s core: Does every­thing that is tech­ni­cal­ly pos­si­ble also make eco­nom­ic sense? When is it viable? Should robots be used to dig­i­talise every work­flow? In which instances is it quick­er and more effi­cient to draw on the knowl­edge, cre­ativ­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty of humans?

Lis­ten to the pod­cast here.

Xel­len­to at the HR Sum­mit 2023: HOW AI IS REV­O­LU­TION­IZ­ING HUMAN RESOURCES

At the 2023 HR sum­mit in Frank­furt, Xellento’s mana­ging part­ner Till Schöppe-Fries sum­ma­rized the com­pa­ny-spon­sored forum as fol­lows: “In the com­ing years arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence will rev­o­lu­tion­ize com­pa­nies and indus­try sec­tors. This applies to all depart­ments con­cerned, rang­ing from research & devel­op­ment to IT, from HR to com­mu­ni­ca­tions. It is a mat­ter of utmost impor­tance regard­less of busi­ness sec­tor”. In the pan­el dis­cus­sion with Covestro’s Dr. Wal­ter Grün­er, Glob­al Head of IT & Dig­i­tal­iza­tion, and Dr. Roscoe Arau­jo, Senior Project Man­ag­er Trans­for­ma­tion, the fol­low­ing became evi­dent: The prob­lem is not the tech­nol­o­gy; rather, it is the employ­ees’ accep­tance, which could curb the devel­op­ment. Read the fol­low-up report in the mag­a­zine Per­son­al­wirtschaft.

Xellento’s part­ner Peter Alexan­der Rapp in ZEIT

While work­ing from home is becom­ing increas­ing­ly more pop­u­lar, Ger­many is lag­ging behind the home office trend. Chris­t­ian Schultz, edi­tor at dpa, notes that orga­ni­za­tion­al ques­tions remain par­tial­ly unan­swered and that a change of mind is espe­cial­ly nec­es­sary among SMEs:

The Munich based head­hunter Peter Alexan­der Rapp chose a more rig­or­ous word­ing. «Ger­many is trail­ing far behind with regard to the con­cept of Smart Work.» The prob­lem is root­ed in a com­pa­ny land­scape which is often char­ac­ter­ized by SMEs. Espe­cial­ly in SMEs not locat­ed in the vicin­i­ty of large cities a change of mind is nec­es­sary; nowa­days, job can­di­dates request such work options. It requires man­i­fold incen­tives to win the sought pro­fes­sion­als. In some com­pa­nies there is dis­agree­ment between HR offi­cers and more tra­di­tion­al­ly think­ing com­pa­ny boss­es. The lat­ter fre­quent­ly judge employ­ees to work less and pur­sue oth­er tasks when at home.

Read the full arti­cle

Xel­len­to takes over Board Xperts

Grün­wald and Frankfurt/Main, 10th of Feb­ru­ary 2020. Board Xperts GmbH and Xel­len­to Execu­tive Search are join­ing forces with regard to the place­ment of super­vi­so­ry and advi­so­ry board mem­bers as well as top-tier man­age­ment posi­tions. This coop­er­a­tion will enable both com­pa­nies to fur­ther strength­en their capa­bil­i­ties of fill­ing high-lev­el man­age­ment posi­tions. More­over, when seek­ing a high­ly skilled super­vi­so­ry or advi­so­ry board mem­ber, they can draw on a pool of 1,800 per­son­al­i­ties with lead­er­ship exper­tise across near­ly all indus­tries and func­tion­al areas.

Dr. Klaus Weigel, Mana­ging Part­ner of Board Xperts GmbH notes that ‘with regard to the place­ment of super­vi­so­ry and advi­so­ry board mem­bers we have been work­ing with a broad range of clients, espe­cial­ly larg­er pri­vate­ly held com­pa­nies as well as finan­cial invest­ment firms, since many years. Now we are able to expand our net­work even fur­ther and devel­op new mar­ket poten­tial by addi­tion­al­ly focus­ing on our clients’ top-tier man­age­ment needs.’ Dr. Matthias Kestler, Part­ner at Xel­len­to Execu­tive Search adds that ‘our clients will prof­it from this coop­er­a­tion and its broad­er reach.’

Board Xperts GmbH, locat­ed in Frankfurt/Main since 2006, is a leader in the place­ment of expe­ri­enced super­vi­so­ry board mem­bers, qual­i­fied advi­so­ry board mem­bers and indus­try experts. Dr. Klaus Weigel is a found­ing board mem­ber of the asso­ci­a­tion Auf­sicht­sräte Mit­tel­stand in Deutsch­land e. V. (ArMiD) with cur­rent­ly more than three hun­dred mem­bers. ArMiD’s aim is to offer prac­ti­cal­ly rel­e­vant assis­tance to its mem­bers with regard to their work and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties.

The execu­tive search con­sul­tan­cy Xel­len­to Execu­tive Search is based in Grün­wald by Munich. The com­pa­ny is spe­cial­ized in the place­ment of top-tier and C‑suite man­age­ment posi­tions across inter­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and SMEs. In 2019, Xel­len­to Execu­tive Search was nom­i­nat­ed for the Head­hunter of the Year award. Fur­ther­more, in the most recent head­hunter ran­king in the busi­ness mag­a­zine WirtschaftsWoche Xel­len­to Execu­tive Search was vot­ed among the best across the fields of consulting/professional ser­vices as well as con­sumer goods and retail.

Xel­len­to on the HR Sum­mit 2024: How the reci­procity between human and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence flour­ish­es

In future and akin to a cap­tain, humans will steer and mon­i­tor AI, here­by con­tin­u­ous­ly main­tain­ing the deci­sion-mak­ing author­i­ty and over­all respon­si­bil­i­ty. The poten­tial of AI in a copi­lot func­tion is the top­ic of dis­cus­sion on the 15th Ger­man Human Resources Sum­mit between Sascha Ger­land, Xellento’s mana­ging part­ner, Dr. Yas­min Weiß, pro­fes­sor at the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Nurem­berg and lead­ing HR experts. A sum­ma­ry of the event can be found in the pub­li­ca­tion Per­son­al­wirtschaft.

Key HR peo­ple moves in 2023

The mag­a­zine Per­son­al­wirtschaft asked 22 execu­tive search con­sul­tants for their key HR peo­ple moves in 2023. Xellento’s mana­ging part­ner Dr. Matthias Kestler includ­ed Ruth Wer­hahn in his list­ing who took the posi­tion of chief human resources offi­cer at Vonovia in Octo­ber of this year. Read the ran­king and find out why the dis­tin­guished lawyer is ide­al­ly suit­ed to the new­ly cre­at­ed posi­ton.

Super­vi­so­ry board search firm Board Xperts repo­si­tions itself

Grün­wald and Frank­furt am Main, 25 Novem­ber 2022. Board Xperts GmbH, the lead­ing super­vi­so­ry and advi­so­ry board search firm in Ger­many, will be restruc­tur­ing at the begin­ning of 2023. Dr Klaus Weigel, who co-found­ed Board Xperts in 2006, is hand­ing over sole man­age­ment to Dr Matthias Kestler. Dr Weigel will con­tin­ue to pro­vide Board Xperts sup­port in his role of exter­nal con­sul­tant in the con­text of staffing projects for super­vi­so­ry boards and advi­so­ry boards, and thus also con­tin­ue to con­tribute his many years of expe­ri­ence as well as the net­work he has built up over the years. Dr Matthias Kestler, who is also a found­ing part­ner of Xel­len­to Execu­tive Search, has already worked togeth­er with Dr Weigel as the sec­ond mana­ging part­ner for Board Xperts for the past three years. Board Xperts will be relo­cat­ing its head­quar­ters from Frank­furt am Main to Grün­wald in the course of the repo­si­tion­ing. Board Xperts and Xel­len­to will con­tin­ue to oper­ate as inde­pen­dent com­pa­nies.

Since 2006, Dr Klaus Weigel has estab­lished Board Xperts as the lead­ing qual­i­fied super­vi­so­ry and advi­so­ry board search firm for fam­i­ly-owned busi­ness­es and finan­cial investors in Ger­many. In 2020, Board Xperts and Xel­len­to Execu­tive Search joined forces to col­lab­o­rate in the areas of super­vi­so­ry and advi­so­ry board place­ment as well as recruit­ment con­sult­ing for top posi­tions. Their alliance allows the two com­pa­nies to recruit indi­vid­u­als for oper­a­tional and non-oper­a­tional top man­age­ment posi­tions in an even more tar­get­ed man­ner. Board Xperts’ net­work of more than 1,800 exec­u­tives with lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence cov­ers most indus­tries and spe­cial­ist depart­ments and thus con­sti­tutes a pool for the place­ment of high­ly qual­i­fied super­vi­so­ry and advi­so­ry board mem­bers.

‘The coop­er­a­tion with Xel­len­to has become estab­lished. We pre­pared the repo­si­tion­ing togeth­er and see the cur­rent moment as opti­mal,’ explains Dr Klaus Weigel. Dr Matthias Kestler adds: ‘We look for­ward to fur­ther expand­ing our activ­i­ties in the field of super­vi­so­ry and advi­so­ry board recruit­ment, includ­ing with the help of Dr Weigel. Our cus­tomers stand to ben­e­fit from this alliance.’

Xel­len­to at the HR Sum­mit 2022: Peo­ple Ana­lyt­ics — Less hype, more sub­stance

“We want you, as the HR com­mu­ni­ty, to be able to raise ques­tions that HR would not have been expect­ed to ask at all, and pos­si­bly pro­vide answers to them,” said Xel­len­to Mana­ging Part­ner Peter Alexan­der Rapp at the 2022 HR Sum­mit in Frank­furt. He and Dr Chris Kaibel from Roche dis­cussed how Peo­ple Ana­lyt­ics can trans­form HR as a dis­ci­pline. The mag­a­zine Per­son­al­wirtschaft pro­vides a fol­low-up report.

These were the TOP-HR-Job changes in 2022

Human resources man­age­ment asked 20 head-hunters about the most fas­ci­nat­ing HR man­age­ment posi­tion changes in 2022. Xel­len­to Mana­ging Part­ner Dr Matthias Kestler named Anja Seng among oth­ers, Pres­i­dent of the asso­ci­a­tion Fidar (Women on Super­vi­so­ry Boards) since Octo­ber 2022. Click on Ran­king to find out what makes this new role so impor­tant.

‘Why com­pa­nies repeat­ed­ly hire the wrong man­agers’ – four hypothe­ses

A spe­cial con­tri­bu­tion by Dr. Matthias Kestler. Read the full WirtschaftsWoche arti­cle here.