Werntges Executive Search

Werntges Executive Search is a German Personalberatung that fills key and leadership positions for industrial and technology companies, software and IT businesses and management consultancies. It is run by Maurice Werntges-Gaplanyan, who has been filling those positions since 2018 and has spent 15 years in the profession. He runs every search himself and therefore accepts only a limited number of search projects at any one time. The company works only on a prior mandate, defines a search strategy first, and makes what it will do transparent for the whole course of the project. After a thorough briefing and an understanding of the business case, a client can expect three to five selected and pre-qualified candidates within a few weeks, with the position usually filled within three months.

The focus is IT and digitalisation, and technology in an industrial context. Long standing clients include consultancies working in IT consulting, strategy and technology, together with mid-sized and large industrial and energy companies that need top personnel in the middle of transformation processes. A further focus in recent years has been work with deep tech scale-ups, where the company supports the C-level and founding team as a sparring partner during the growth phase, usually from seed or Series A onwards. Assignments are grouped into Professional Search for specialists, senior consultants, project leaders and emerging managers, Executive Search for leadership, lead consultant, team lead, Abteilungsleiter and Bereichsleiter roles, and Top Executive Search for C-level, Geschäftsführer and Vorstand positions.

The company works from Germany and reaches top candidates in a client's industry internationally as well as at home, through a clear search strategy, a methodical approach and its own network. It argues that the hard part of headhunting today is not finding the desired candidates but winning them, which no artificial intelligence solves and only trust secures. It does not work on percentages or on a contingency basis, and explains its reasoning for that fee model in its blog. Through partners in adjacent disciplines such as IT project work, interim management and personnel development, the service can be extended modularly.