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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Relaunch of the website.

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.

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