Russell Reynolds managed the next coup by hiring the HR consultant.
(Photo: PR)
Dusseldorf It has long been known in the discreet headhunter industry that the executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) wants to catch up with industry leader Egon Zehnder. Attacker RRA has now managed another coup. As the Handelsblatt learned in advance, Maria Basler will start as a partner in the Frankfurt RRA office on May 1 and will strengthen personnel consulting in the areas of banks and private equity.
Previously, Basler worked for competitor Egon Zehnder for more than five years. There, the 48-year-old had, among other things, an eye on the German private equity market in a managerial position.
Like her future boss Matthias Scheiff, Basler is considered to be well connected in the banking sector. Before she switched to HR consulting, she was, among other things, a divisional director at Commerzbank and a managing director at Deutsche Bank. “She has profound experience with complex reorganizations, knows the banking and private equity industry both as a manager and as a consultant and combines this in-depth knowledge of the market with extensive knowledge of governance and compliance requirements,” praised Germany boss Scheiff in a statement that the company intends to release on Friday.
Important mandate taken over from Egon Zehnder
Russell Reynolds is one of the top three consultancies in Germany, some now see the company in second place, right behind Egon Zehnder. Important customers of RRA are names such as SAP, BMW and Airbus. In November, RRA also booted out Egon Zehnder for important Deutsche Bank mandates – and thus caused a discussion in the industry.
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At that time it was about the replacement of the Chief Risk Officer and the successor to the long-standing chairman of the Supervisory Board, Paul Achleitner. Egon Zehnder is said to have taken a “two-pronged approach” to at least one of the two Deutsche Bank mandates, i.e. candidates who were presented to Deutsche Bank also proposed to another financial institution – a no-go in the industry. Egon Zehnder has been considered a top-level position at Deutsche Bank for years.
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