History of Contacts & Management

1988

H. Gerhard Benneck founds a consulting company in Düsseldorf with a specialisation in advertising based recruitment.

1989

Development and refinement of a new search concept in order to better fill difficult positions.

1990

Executive search (headhunting) is added to the service portfolio. Application of the proven search concept to direct search with excellent results.

1992

Through the brief to find a Managing Director who is to take over shares in the employers company and the completion of the project through the sale of the company (the secret wish of the owner) our company discovers a new area of business: Mergers and Acquisitions.

1994

Move into the offices Graf-Adolf-Straße 43 in Düsseldorf

1996

Mrs. Ursula Helmer, who had joined the company in 1992, becomes a Partner. In the meantime companies have been sold to Dutch, Belgian, American and French buyers.

1997

An owner wishes to sell his company but realizes that it is not yet ready to be sold. A program is devised and implemented. In the end the company is running so well, that the owner decides not to sell but to continue. With this success the field of consulting and coaching is born.

1999

Writing of the book “Unternehmensverkauf richtig gemacht” (Selling a business – doing it right). Seminars are held on Buying and Selling a business.

2000

In recruitment the field of executive search now accounts for 80% of the projects. The fields of mergers and acquisitions and recruitment are about even in terms of volume.

2002

The company has grown to 7 people. Of those, four are active in consulting.

2003

2003

Move into todays offices, Stresemannstr. 28 in Düsseldorf. The company spins off the area of Training, which Ursula Helmer takes over and runs under the name of First Management. The premises are shared.

2005

Publication of the book on Mergers and Acquistions by Wiley & Sons. It sells well and makes it onto the Financial Times bestseller list.

2006

Relaunch of the website.

2013

We join the Cornerstone Group as the German office, remaining independent but part of the larger group. We are now in a positon to offer search services throughout the world.

2014

Through Cornerstone we become member of the AESC (Association of Executive Search Consultants).