XEL­LEN­TO: THE Team

Sascha Ger­land

After study­ing busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion at the Frank­furt School of Finance & Man­age­ment and train­ing as a banker, Sascha Ger­land began his pro­fes­sion­al career as a human resource con­sul­tant with a focus on finan­cial ser­vices at Hill­rein­er Con­sult­ing in Munich. There, he was respon­si­ble for set­ting up the sub­sidiary ‘Hill­rein­er Con­sult­ing Lim­it­ed’ in Lon­don and sub­se­quent­ly worked as its CFO and COO. After Sascha’s appoint­ment to Part­ner in 1998, he served as Mana­ging Part­ner of Hill­rein­er Con­sult­ing from 2009–2012. In 2012, he set up his own busi­ness as a human resources con­sul­tant. With more than 25 years of expe­ri­ence as an HR con­sul­tant in the finan­cial ser­vices sec­tor, he is a pro­found expert in the indus­try and a high­ly val­ued inter­locu­tor for exec­u­tives and spe­cial­ists. In addi­tion, Sascha is also a DBVC-cer­ti­fied Sys­temic Busi­ness Coach.

As a per­son, he dis­tin­guish­es him­self by a high lev­el of empa­thy, an excel­lent feel for peo­ple and a deep sense of loy­al­ty and com­mit­ment. Due to his sound coach­ing expe­ri­ence, Sascha brings with him a strong under­stand­ing of sys­tems.

Focus of his work:
Appoint­ment of super­vi­so­ry boards, advi­so­ry boards & indus­try experts
Finan­cial Ser­vices
Real Estate
Medi­um-sized indus­tri­al & fam­i­ly busi­ness­es

Chal­lenges he accom­pa­nies:
Estab­lish­ment and restruc­tur­ing sce­nar­ios
ESG ori­en­ta­tion of com­pa­nies
Devel­op­ment of new asset class­es and busi­ness mod­els
Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 – 23
E‑mail: sgerland@xellento.com

Nicole Gränitz

With over 15 years execu­tive search expe­ri­ence, Nicole Gränitz fur­thers the ide­al place­ment of strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant top-tier man­age­ment posi­tions. Here­by, the focus of her work lies in the field of indus­try and the pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices sec­tor.

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 – 50
E‑mail: ngraenitz@xellento.com

Kai Horten

Dipl.-Ing. (Univ.) Aero­space Tech­nol­o­gy

Kai Horten advis­es share­hold­ers and entre­pre­neurs on strate­gic per­son­nel deci­sions. He advis­es indus­tri­al, medi­um-sized and fam­i­ly-owned com­pa­nies as well as pri­vate equi­ty firms on first and sec­ond lev­el appoint­ments, but also fills posi­tions on super­vi­so­ry boards, advi­so­ry boards and indus­try experts.

Before join­ing the recruit­ment con­sul­tan­cy, Kai Horten was CEO and Mana­ging Direc­tor at ESG Elek­tron­iksys­tem- und Logis­tik GmbH, Pre­mi­um AEROTEC and Atlas-Elek­tron­ik for 14 years.

He holds a degree in aero­space engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the Fed­er­al Armed Forces in Munich.

Focus of his work:
Fill­ing key posi­tions in indus­tri­al / tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies, esp. Defence, Aero­space, Auto­mo­tive, IT/Cyber Secu­ri­ty

Chal­lenges he accom­pa­nies:

Suc­ces­sion / Change of Own­er­ship / M&A
Per­for­mance improve­ment / turn around in indus­tri­al, medi­um-sized and fam­i­ly-owned com­pa­nies as well as pri­vate equi­ty firms

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 – 26
E‑mail: khorten@xellento.com

Daniela Kestler

Daniela Kestler joined XEL­LEN­TO Execu­tive Search upon the company’s incep­tion. Apart from her respon­si­bil­i­ties per­tain­ing to office man­age­ment, her pri­ma­ry focus is on the entire team’s trav­el and mobil­i­ty require­ments.

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 – 42
E‑mail: dkestler@xellento.com

Dr. Matthias Kestler

Lawyer, Spe­cial­ist Tax Lawyer (in 2000),
Tax Accoun­tant (in 2000),
Dipl.-Volkswirt and Dipl.-Kaufmann

Dr. Matthias Kestler start­ed his career in 1992 at the Repi­ti­to­ri­um Hem­mer and the pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices firm Haar­mann, Hem­mel­rath & Part­ner (com­pa­ny law, tax law, M&A, restruc­tur­ing, pri­vate equi­ty and ven­ture cap­i­tal). Sub­se­quent­ly, he joined Jones Day, a glob­al­ly lead­ing law firm. There­after, he moved to the cor­po­rate side where he held dif­fer­ent posi­tions includ­ing a sev­er­al-year-long tenure as ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG’s Gen­er­al Coun­sel.

Ulti­mate­ly, Matthias’ long­stand­ing expe­ri­ence in the field of human resources laid the foun­da­tion for his tran­si­tion to execu­tive search in 2007. In coop­er­a­tion with Dieter Rick­ert and Rick Ful­ghum he found­ed Rat.Haus from which the suc­ces­sor com­pa­ny XEL­LEN­TO arose.

Despite describ­ing him­self as a ‘gen­er­al­ist’, Matthias’ exper­tise as a search con­sul­tant is root­ed in his net­work and spe­cial­ist knowl­edge.

Focus of his work:
Appoint­ment of super­vi­so­ry boards, advi­so­ry boards and indus­try experts.
Appoint­ment of board mem­bers, mana­ging direc­tors (and C‑1) across all indus­tries
Pri­vate Equi­ty, PE port­fo­lio com­pa­nies, PLCs, Coop­er­a­tives and Foun­da­tions
Medi­um-sized Com­pa­nies, Fam­i­ly Busi­ness­es and Fam­i­ly Offices

Chal­lenges he accom­pa­nies:
Restruc­tur­ings and turn­arounds
Diver­si­ty, dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 – 11
E‑mail: mkestler@xellento.com

Mar­tin Krichel

Hav­ing learned the research busi­ness from scratch, Mar­tin Krichel has since accrued close to twen­ty years of execu­tive search exper­tise cross indus­try. In addi­tion to mana­ging the entire search process, he is account­able for XELLENTO’s per­for­mance indi­ca­tors as well as the con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of resource plan­ning. Fur­ther­more, he is a key go-between to the sis­ter com­pa­ny Board Xperts which spe­cial­izes in advi­so­ry and super­vi­so­ry board place­ments.

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 – 55
E‑mail: mkrichel@xellento.com

Peter Alexan­der Rapp

After obtain­ing his mar­ket­ing degree Peter Rapp start­ed a suc­cess­ful career in both mar­ket­ing and sales at dif­fer­ent con­sumer goods com­pa­nies (BASF Mag­net­ics & Nike Inter­na­tion­al). Sub­se­quent­ly, he held gen­er­al man­age­ment posi­tions at Ber­tels­mann AG (RTL/BMG Enter­tain­ment) and Dress­mas­ter GmbH, a sis­ter-com­pa­ny of the Steil­mann Group. Since 2004, Peter has ded­i­cat­ed his career to execu­tive search. At Rus­sell Reynolds Asso­ciates and Hof­mann Con­sul­tants Execu­tive Search he filled numer­ous top man­age­ment posi­tions.

The sum of his man­age­ment expe­ri­ence across Fast Mov­ing Con­sumer Goods, Sports, Fash­ion & Lifestyle, and Retail led to his con­sult­ing exper­tise and the here­to linked large num­ber of search­es. Due to an increase in dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion some of the afore­men­tioned indus­tries are cur­rent­ly expe­ri­enc­ing dra­mat­ic changes. Peter has a close prox­im­i­ty to and a detailed knowl­edge of the asso­ci­at­ed chal­lenges.

His back­ground and skills allow him to under­stand dif­fer­ent com­pa­ny struc­tures and cul­tures quick­ly and accu­rate­ly, thus being able to have an in-depth under­stand­ing of a client’s par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge.

Next to his strong and exten­sive net­work to com­pa­nies and their deci­sion mak­ers Peter has a marked pas­sion for peo­ple. He places great impor­tance on avail­abil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ca­tion as well as going the extra mile for suc­cess.

Focus of his work:
Fast Mov­ing Con­sumer Goods
Sports, Fash­ion & Lifestyle
Media & Enter­tain­ment
Retail (bricks & mor­tar and e‑commerce)

Chal­lenges he accom­pa­nies:
Mul­ti-chan­nel align­ment of com­pa­nies
Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion
Embed­ding the val­ues of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and
cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty in com­pa­nies
Cus­tomer expe­ri­ence man­age­ment

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 – 17
E‑mail: prapp@xellento.com

Natal­ie Rapp

Natal­ie Rapp has gained more than twen­ty years research expe­ri­ence in lead­ing inter­na­tion­al execu­tive search firms in both Eng­land and Ger­many. The focus of her work spans con­sumer goods, media, fash­ion and the lux­u­ry goods indus­try. In addi­tion, she is respon­si­ble for XELLENTO’s data­base qual­i­ty man­age­ment. Flu­ent­ly bilin­gual, Natal­ie holds a uni­ver­si­ty degree in psy­chol­o­gy.

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 –  0
E‑mail: nrapp@xellento.com

Dilek Schapeit

Since obtain­ing a uni­ver­si­ty degree in soci­ol­o­gy, Dilek Schapeit has worked for inter­na­tion­al execu­tive search firms for near­ly twen­ty years. Expe­ri­enced in mana­ging the entire search process, she is a self-con­fessed ‘all-rounder’ with regard to sec­tor exper­tise. Dilek is flu­ent­ly trilin­gual.

Con­tact:
Phone:+49 (89) 620 30 88 – 53
E‑mail: dschapeit@xellento.com

Till Schöppe-Fries

Asses­sor iur. 

Till Schöppe-Fries com­menced his career as an in-house lawyer focused on bank super­vi­sion and cap­i­tal mar­ket law at Trigon Wert­pa­pier­han­dels­bank AG in Frank­furt pri­or to join­ing the inter­na­tion­al law firm Nor­ton Rose Ful­bright. For a glob­al­ly lead­ing legal execu­tive search con­sul­tan­cy he estab­lished the cor­po­rate lawyer busi­ness, here­by inter­na­tion­al­ly recruit­ing lawyers for Ger­man and multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies across all hier­ar­chies, includ­ing the Gen­er­al Coun­sel lev­el. His clients ranged from cor­po­ra­tions to fam­i­ly offices and pri­vate equi­ty firms. There­after, Till con­cen­trat­ed on the place­ment of part­ners and teams in renowned nation­al and inter­na­tion­al law firms; fur­ther­more, he was respon­si­ble for set­ting-up a notable branch office in the field of legal recruit­ment. As mana­ging direc­tor he held respon­si­bil­i­ty for the Ger­man busi­ness.

A pro­nounced prob­lem aware­ness and the abil­i­ty to put him­self in his clients’ shoes are the hall­marks of Till’s modus operan­di. Avail­abil­i­ty, speed and solu­tion-focused actions are a mat­ter of course for him. As a con­sul­tant, Till uti­lizes his exper­tise in cor­po­rate gov­er­nance, legal and com­pli­ance issues cross-indus­try.

Focus of his work:
Pro­fes­sion­al Ser­vices
Legal
Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance
Com­pli­ance
Inter­na­tion­al
Pri­vate Equi­ty
Fam­i­ly Offices
Fam­i­ly Busi­ness­es

Chal­lenges he accom­pa­nies:
Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion
Sus­tain­abil­i­ty
Diver­si­ty
M&A and finance

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 – 20
E‑mail: tschoeppe@xellento.com

Mar­co Unger

Mar­co Unger has acquired in excess of 25 years expe­ri­ence in office and back office man­age­ment. He is piv­otal in over­see­ing the company’s finance, account­ing and IT on behalf of all part­ners and employ­ees.

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 – 57
E‑mail: munger@xellento.com

Petra Wieringer

In her func­tion as assis­tant to the man­age­ment board, Petra Wieringer has accrued near­ly thir­ty years of pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence with­in the execu­tive search indus­try. Apart from her sec­re­tar­i­al respon­si­bil­i­ties and the man­age­ment of the entire appoint­ment sched­ule, she is a pro­fi­cient first point of con­tact for clients and can­di­dates alike.

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (89) 620 30 88 – 52
E‑mail: pwieringer@xellento.com

Bernadette Win­ter

In her func­tion as a free­lance jour­nal­ist and PR edi­tor, Bernadette Win­ter is respon­si­ble for all press and pub­lic rela­tions mat­ters con­cern­ing XEL­LEN­TO Execu­tive Search and Board Xperts.

Con­tact:
Phone: +49 (178) 7340742
E‑mail: bwinter@xellento.biz