Heidrick & Struggles Appoints Two Managing Directors to Lead Interim Management Business in Germany

CHICAGO/LONDON/MUNICH, February 19, 2026 — Heidrick & Struggles, a premier provider of global leadership advisory and on-demand (interim) talent solutions, announced the appointment of Dr. Christian Frank and Mike Schwanke as Managing Directors of Heidrick & Struggles’ Interim Management business in Germany, Atreus. They will immediately assume responsibility for Atreus’ in-country operations and strategy. These appointments underscore Heidrick & Struggles’ commitment to continuity for clients, executives, and employees in the DACH region. Founders Dr. Harald Linné and Rainer Nagel will remain part of the management team through the end 2026 to ensure a smooth leadership transition.

“Germany represents a core market for our Executive Interim strategy, reflecting both its significance to our clients and its role within our global interim management leadership platform,” said Sunny Ackerman, Global Managing Partner, On-Demand Talent, Heidrick & Struggles. “Christian and Mike bring extensive experience in leadership and transformation and are well placed to lead the next phase of growth in the German market as part of our global interim offerings.”

Since Heidrick & Struggles acquired Atreus in 2023, Atreus has contributed to expanding the firm’s interim management footprint across Germany and Europe, reinforcing its leading position in the executive interim segment. This leadership transition marks the next step in integrating and scaling interim management in one of Europe’s largest economies.

“Organizations today are navigating increasing complexity and change, and they need experienced leadership that can create stability and deliver results,” said Mike Schwanke. “Demand for executive-level interim and transformational leadership solutions continues to grow across Germany, Europe, and beyond.”

“The past few years have reinforced how critical seasoned leadership is during periods of disruption,” said Dr. Christian Frank. “We partner closely with our clients as trusted advisors, combining practical expertise with hands-on support to drive meaningful, measurable outcomes. That client focus continues to fuel our momentum and our growth.”

“Over the past three years, our business across the DACH region has grown strongly in all our solution areas – executive search, interim management, and consulting. With this new leadership team in place, we are even better positioned to support our clients through complex leadership transformations,” said Nicolas von Rosty, Managing Partner of Heidrick & Struggles, Germany and Cluster Leader, DACH.

Mike Schwanke led the Consumer Goods & Retail industry practice prior to his current appointment. He brings more than 20 years of leadership experience spanning general management, marketing, commercial digitalization, sales, and digital transformation.

Dr. Christian Frank has been a long-standing Partner and member of the Executive Board of Atreus. He brings more than 30 years of management experience across restructuring, change management, operations, and sales. He previously led the Industrial Machinery & Plant Engineering industry practice.

About Heidrick & Struggles

Heidrick & Struggles is the world’s foremost advisor on executive leadership, driving superior client performance through premier human capital leadership advisory services. For more than 70 years, we have delivered value for our clients by leveraging unrivaled expertise to help organizations discover and enable outstanding leaders and teams. Learn more at www.heidrick.com.

Media Contact, Heidrick
Bianca Wilson
Global Director, Public Relations
Heidrick & Struggles
bwilson@heidrick.com

Media Contact, Atreus
Frank Wöllstein
WBCO PR-Agency
f.woellstein@wbco.de
t +49 69 1338 8035
m +49 171 489 7487

As a leading performer in interim management, Atreus clinches yet another “Hidden Champion of the Consulting Market 2026/2027” award

Munich, December 15, 2025 – Munich-based management consultancy Atreus continues its ascent, clearly prevailing against strong competition when it was named “Hidden Champion of the Consulting Market 2026/2027.” The market leader from Germany reaffirmed its top position and maintained a clear lead over other high-caliber competitors in the “Interim Management” segment. Survey participants consistently rated Atreus’s consulting expertise as “high” or “very high.”

These findings come from a recent survey conducted by the Scientific Society for Management and Consulting (Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Management und Beratung, WGMB) in Bonn. The study’s findings are based on information from more than 1,100 executives at large enterprises in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, each with annual revenues exceeding €500 million. Three key groups were surveyed for the study: members of the board of management and/or senior management, budget holders, and project leads.

Award reaffirms consultancy’s standing as a key competitor

The aim of the study was to identify consulting firms that the market perceives as particularly high-performing but that are less well known than ubiquitous names such as McKinsey, BCG, and Bain. The central criterion for the award is that a “Hidden Champion” must be judged to have competencies that are superior to those of the aforementioned firms in at least one consulting area or industry. A “Hidden Champion” is therefore defined as a firm regarded as outstanding in its specialty, surpassing even the best in the consulting industry. Only consultancies that clearly demonstrate this essential quality may bear the title “Hidden Champion.” That mid-sized consultancies manage to successfully compete with the market leaders is demonstrably rare; this award thus confirms Atreus’s status as a significant challenger to the industry’s leading players for the third consecutive year.

“The award stands for hard work and fuels further momentum in the future”

“We are delighted to have been recognized as a ‘Hidden Champion.’ It confirms our leading position in the consulting market but also demonstrates that clients recognize both our efforts and our innovative strength,” explains Dr. Harald Linné, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Atreus. “This award further motivates us to continue on our path as focused implementers and creative thought leaders. It stands for the tireless dedication of our team and gives further impetus to continually delight our clients in the future,” adds Rainer Nagel, also Managing Partner and Co‑Founder of Atreus.

In the consulting discipline of “Interim Management,” Atreus was able to capture the top spot in the study, outperforming prominent firms such as Roland Berger and Accenture. The study finds that Hidden Champions excel at execution and teamwork, speaking their clients’ language while winning them over with innovative solutions.

About the company

Atreus GmbH (LLC), a leading provider of executive interim management in Germany, helps clients resolve highly challenging change situations by placing experienced executives in line, project, and program management roles. Atreus Interim Management delivers tailored, high-quality solutions designed for and with relevance to the C‑suite level. Founded in 2006, the company is led by its Managing Partners and Co-Founders, Dr. Harald Linné and Rainer Nagel. Leveraging a network of more than 18,000 interim managers, Atreus completed more than 400 projects for 300 clients both at home and abroad in the past year alone. Atreus is part of Heidrick & Struggles (Nasdaq: HSII), a leading provider of global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions that meet the leadership and consulting needs of the world’s leading companies.

Atreus GmbH
Sabine Dreesen (Head of Marketing), dreesen@atreus.de, +49 89 45 22 49 420

WBCO Public Relations & Business Communications GmbH
Frank Wöllstein, f.woellstein@wbco.de, +49 69 133 88 035

Atreus honored as “Best Consultant 2024” for the eleventh year in a row – awarded in three categories

Munich, March 20, 2024 – Atreus GmbH, the market leader in interim management in Germany and one of Europe’s leading consulting providers, has once again confirmed its position in the brand eins industry ranking of “Best Management Consultants 2024”. For the eleventh time in a row, the company is being honored for its outstanding achievements and is receiving awards in three important categories.

In this year’s survey, which was conducted by the business magazine brand eins in cooperation with the market research institute Statista, Atreus was once again able to consolidate its position as a leading consulting firm. With top ratings in three different categories, Atreus’ wide-ranging expertise is clearly confirmed. In addition to its outstanding role in its core competence of interim management, the company was once again awarded the title of “Best Consultant” in the areas of restructuring and operations management.

Every year, the largest industry survey on the consulting market analyzes which consulting firms are the best in the country. For this purpose, the management consultancies are first interviewed before the judgments of the clients, who are top managers from companies and senior executives from the DAX, MDAX, SDAX and TecDAX, give their verdict. Taken together, these assessments then determine the placement on the leaderboards.

Rainer Nagel, co-founder and co-managing director of Atreus, commented on the prestigious awards as follows: “This renewed recognition in various important categories is a clear sign of the great quality of our work and of the trust we enjoy among our clients. These successes are a proof to our holistic approach, which combines in-depth industry knowledge with individually tailored consulting services. They are also a reflection to the passion and dedication of our team in tackling our clients’ most complex challenges.” This continued success is an incentive for the entire Atreus team to “continue to be at the forefront of innovation and change in the consulting industry,” Nagel adds.

Dr. Harald Linné, also co-founder and co-managing director of Atreus, adds: “The recognition as ‘Best Consultant’ is another powerful testimony to our relentless drive to always be at the forefront of progress and industry developments. In a world characterized by uncertainty and rapid change, our renewed success in the brand eins ranking confirms that we offer our clients relevant, future-oriented advice that creates real added value for them.”

The annual study by brand eins and Statista is considered one of the most important benchmarks for quality and performance in the German consulting market. It is based on a detailed survey of consulting firms and their clients, including executives from the most important German stock indices.

Atreus GmbH
Sabine Dreesen (Head of Marketing), dreesen@atreus.de, +49 89 45 22 49 420

WBCO Public Relations & Business Communications GmbH
Frank Wöllstein, f.woellstein@wbco.de, +49 69 1338 8035

Reliability, integrity and speed: Atreus named Hidden Champion of the Consulting Market 2024/2025 

Munich, December 16, 2023 – A fantastic success for Atreus: the Munich-based consulting company has been named “Hidden Champion of the Consulting Market 2024/2025,” outshining many well-known competitors. It was in the “Interim Management” category that German market leader Atreus prevailed by a clear margin over top-drawer rivals like Roland Berger, Accenture, Oliver Wyman and Deloitte. The market survey results showed that 90 percent of respondents considered the consulting expertise of Atreus to be “very high” or “high.” The Munich company was particularly noted for not only its reliability, integrity and speed, but also its flexibility, commitment to results and value placed on people.

These are the key findings from a recent survey done by the renowned WGMB (Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Management und Beratung), a management and consulting research institute based in Bonn, Germany, which did its fieldwork from June to October and has now published the results. They surveyed 1,055 management executives who work for major German companies with an annual turnover of at least 500 million euros. Three main groups of decision-makers were interviewed: project managers, budget managers, and members of boards and C-suites.

In its core competence, namely the Interim Management category, Atreus successfully prevailed over even the biggest players in the consulting sector, achieving survey best with an outstanding 446 points. At a time of acute challenges and uncertain markets, Atreus consultants have built a reputation as reliable implementers, knowledgeable experts and forward-thinking innovators. According to the study, Hidden Champions are particularly good at implementation and teamwork, speak the language of each department, and also offer a very competitive price.

Survey respondents said that the most important criterion in choosing a consulting firm was the “ability to implement,” which came in first ahead of “technical expertise” and “innovative thinking.” It is particularly noteworthy that among all consulting companies, regardless of industry and specialty, Atreus achieved an excellent fourth place in this survey category, which covered the ability to develop practicable solutions and carry out the implementation successfully. On top of that, the market perception of Atreus was consistently rated as “very positive” by all respondents.

Reliable implementers and forward-thinking innovators required

“We’re overjoyed to be honored with this Hidden Champion award. Not only does it confirm our position as a leading force in the consulting sector, it also shows how much our deep commitment and innovative excellence are appreciated by clients,” says Dr. Harald Linné, Managing Partner and co-founder of Atreus. “This award will spur us to keep forging ahead as reliable implementers and forward-thinking innovators. For us, it’s an acknowledgement of all the hard work put in by our team, and also an extra motivation to keep meeting our clients’ expectations to the fullest,” adds Rainer Nagel, also a Managing Partner and co-founder of Atreus alongside Dr. Linné.

Overall, the survey’s respondents were very positive about Atreus as a consulting firm. A clear expression of this was in the extremely high satisfaction ratings awarded to the services provided by Atreus. Atreus’ specialist knowledge, industry familiarity and analytical capabilities were particularly valued, as were communication skills on both technical and managerial levels.

The aim of the study was to identity consulting companies that are perceived as particularly strong by clients but are still relatively unknown, especially in comparison to prominent players like McKinsey, BCG and Bain. These Hidden Champions distinguish themselves by offering a high-quality alternative to the industry’s most well-known firms. In fact, there are only a few mid-sized consulting companies that can successfully compete against the consulting market’s champions. This award affirms once again Atreus’ significant role as a serious challenger.

About Atreus

Atreus GmbH (LLC), Germany’s leading provider of executive interim management, helps clients solve particularly challenging transitional situations by placing experienced executives for line, project and program management tasks. With high-quality, tailor-made services, Atreus Interim Management offers solutions at or adjacent to the C-suite level. Launched in 2006, the company is led by its founding managing directors Dr. Harald Linné and Rainer Nagel. With a network of more than 16,000 interim managers, Atreus carried out more than 400 projects in the last year alone, for some 250 clients across Germany and worldwide. Atreus is part of Heidrick & Struggles (Nasdaq: HSII), a leading provider of global management consulting and on-demand talent solutions that works with the world’s top companies to answer their leadership and consulting needs.

Atreus GmbH
Sabine Dreesen (Marketing Director), dreesen@atreus.de, +49 89 45 22 49 420

WBCO Public Relations & Business Communications GmbH
Ferdinand von Gehlen, f.woellstein@wbco.de, +49 69 133 88 039

Atreus is once again winner of the prestigious German Brand Award

Munich, 15 June 2023 – Atreus GmbH, the market leader in interim management in Germany as well as one of the leading European providers, has once again won the German Brand Award for its branding. Atreus was able to convince the jury of brand experts in two categories at once.

The German Design Council Foundation presented this year’s awards for outstanding brand management. Atreus stood out in two categories: winner in the category “Corporate Services” and winner in the category “Brand Communication – Brand Events”. The formulated guiding principle of establishing a “strong brand”, which is to act as the “North Star” for all the company’s decisions, was convincing across the board.

The awards once again confirm the high level at which Atreus has established itself as a brand. The company is now synonymous in the industry with high-quality interim management. An intuitive design refresh of the website as well as innovative offers such as an in-house manager portal formed the basis for the now award-winning “Corporate Services” initiative to specify the company’s own brand essence: effective communication of competencies and project requirements meets proven Storm Proof Achievers with an unconditional claim to success and outstanding implementation strength.

The video presentation on the concept of “Strategic Co-Branding” by Atreus was awarded in the category “Brand Communication – Brand Events”. The highlight of this approach is the cooperation with Fraunhofer Alumni. The 4th Innovation Lounge “The Future of Industrial Energy Supply – Quo Vadis?” provided a forum for experts from industry and Fraunhofer alumni to summarise the current state of development of hydrogen as a promising energy carrier in summer 2022.

Team spirit is the key to success

The key to sustainable success at Atreus and its partners is the unconditional team spirit that permeates all projects. In this respect, Marketing Manager Sabine Dreesen thanks the entire Atreus team and partners for their cooperation and emphasises: “This success would not have been possible without the commitment, dedication and expertise of our talented team and our valued partners. I thank each and every one of them for their contribution to this great success, which we see as a confirmation of our excellent cooperation over the past years.” Back in March, Atreus was named “Best Consultant” in numerous categories by the business magazine brand eins for the tenth time in a row, as well as Top Consultant 2023 by Focus, and is also a Hidden Champion 2023. The further awards now received at the German Brand Award therefore confirm Atreus’ high standing across the industry as a successful management provider.

About Atreus

Atreus GmbH (LLC), the leading provider of executive interim management in Germany, supports clients in solving particularly challenging change situations by placing experienced executives for line, project and program management tasks. With tailor-made and high-quality services, Atreus Interim Management offers solutions at C-suite level and with relevance to the C-suite level. The company was founded in 2006 and is led by founders and managing directors Dr Harald Linné and Rainer Nagel. With a network of more than 16,000 interim managers, Atreus carried out more than 400 projects for 250 clients in Germany and abroad last year alone.

Atreus GmbH
Sabine Dreesen (Head of Marketing), dreesen@atreus.de, +49 89 45 22 49 420

WBCO Public Relations & Business Communications GmbH
Frank Wöllstein, f.woellstein@wbco.de, +49 69 1338 8035

Munich, March 13, 2023 – Atreus GmbH, the market leader in interim management in Germany and one of Europe’s leading providers, has achieved a top position in the current brand eins industry. It has been rankedas “Best Consultant 2023” for the tenth time in a row and is receiving awards in a total of six categories this year. In addition to interim management, Atreus is one of Germany’s best consultants in five other categories.

For the tenth time, the business magazine brand eins, along with the market research institute Statista, has examined the German consulting market and selected the best consulting companies in 2023. Since the beginning of the evaluation, Atreus has been one of the most renowned consulting firms year after year and was able to score points in a total of six categories this year. In the interim management category, the Munich-based company prevailed against well-known competition and, as in previous years, landed in a top position. In addition, Atreus was named “Best Consultant” in the following categories: Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, Machinery & Plant Engineering, Restructuring, Human Resources and Operations Management.

“Once again, our excellent results and awards as ‘Best Consultants’ in numerous categories emphatically show that Atreus and its high level of expertise in consulting and implementation continue to have a high level of market awareness. We are very pleased about this and it is both a motivation and an incentive for us. We want to and will continue to meet and take into account the increased demand for interim mandates in all industrial sectors in the future. That too in our usual high accuracy of fit and quality. After all, Atreus is not only successful in interim management, but also in the area of project and program management and large transformation projects or special projects in companies,” emphasizes Rainer Nagel, co-founder and managing director of Atreus.

Atreus traditionally performs very well in the brand eins industry ranking. With a total of six awards, the Munich-based consulting firm was once again convincing across the board this year. From the point of view of Dr. Harald Linné, who, like Rainer Nagel, is also co-founder and managing director of Atreus, the once again strong rankings show that the company is on the right track. “Our focus on the very highest quality and our industry-specific approach are in high demand. Several industries are facing numerous structural as well as overarching challenges as a result of the energy transition, digitization, and e-mobility. The ongoing supply chain bottlenecks and the consequences of the Ukraine war are also aggravating the situation,” Linnaeus emphasizes. In order to continue to provide companies with competent support in special situations as a sparring partner with strong implementation skills, Atreus will therefore continue to invest heavily in its wide-ranging network of experts.

Every year, the largest industry survey of the consulting market analyzes which consulting firms are the best in the country. For this purpose, the management consultancies are first interviewed before customers, top managers from the companies and executives from DAX, MDAX, SDAX and TecDAX make their judgment. In combination, the assessments result in the placement on the leaderboards.

About Atreus

Atreus GmbH (LLC), a leading provider of executive interim management services in Germany, supports clients in solving particularly challenging change situations by providing experienced executives for line, project and program management tasks. With tailor-made and high-quality services, Atreus offers interim management solutions at the C-suite level and with relevance for the C-suite level. The company was founded in 2006 and is managed by the founders and managing directors Dr. Harald Linné and Rainer Nagel. With a network of more than 16,000 interim managers, Atreus carried out more than 400 projects for 250 clients in Germany and abroad last year alone.

Atreus GmbH
Sabine Dreesen (Head of Marketing), dreesen@atreus.de, +49 89 45 22 49 420

WBCO Public Relations & Business Communications GmbH
Frank Wöllstein, f.woellstein@wbco.de, +49 69 1338 8035, +49 171 489 7487

Heidrick & Struggles Acquires Atreus, Germany’s Market Leader in Interim Management

• The acquisition creates basis for integrated talent and leadership advisory offering to meet temporary and permanent management needs
• Current Atreus management will remain in place
• Atreus brand name to be retained
• With Atreus, Heidrick & Struggles strengthens its market-leading position in the growing on-demand executive and interim talent space

MUNICH, February 2, 2023 – With the successful completion of the acquisition, publicly listed Heidrick & Struggles (Nasdaq: HSII), a premier provider of global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions, headquartered in Chicago, has acquired 100 percent of the shares of Atreus, the leading provider of executive interim management in Germany, headquartered in Munich. Together with the US-based Business Talent Group (BTG), acquired in 2021, Atreus is now part of the recently formed On-Demand Talent business segment of Heidrick & Struggles.

The acquisition of Atreus strengthens Heidrick & Struggles’ global reach and leadership in the on-demand talent market segment. The acquisition also represents an investment by Heidrick & Struggles in Germany, a strategically important market for the company in Europe.

“In addition to Heidrick & Struggles’ core German businesses of executive search and leadership consulting, on-demand talent solutions at the C-suite level play a key role in helping organizations acquire talent with specific expertise at the executive level that they need on a short-term and flexible basis,” said Dr. Nicolas von Rosty, Partner In Charge of Heidrick & Struggles Germany. “Especially now, in times of great change and volatility, we are able to support our clients even moreso by providing them access to top talent to fill roles on an interim basis, or to drive projects forward.”

Together, the complementary services will be combined to create new, integrated solutions tailored to the client. As part of Heidrick & Struggles, Atreus will be able to operate even more internationally and efficiently in the future. The current Atreus management team, led by founders Dr. Harald Linné and Rainer Nagel, will remain in place.

“In times when companies have to deal with various challenges at the same time, Atreus focuses above all on providing its clients with the necessary management capacity of ‘storm-proof achievers’ at the highest speed and flexibility, both nationally and internationally – and thus making a significant contribution to their success. The decision in favor of Heidrick & Struggles therefore makes perfect sense from a strategic point of view,” said Dr. Harald Linné. “Becoming part of Heidrick & Struggles is the right strategic decision for Atreus and its further development. Heidrick & Struggles is a global leader with an outstanding network and a wide-ranging portfolio of talent and leadership advisory services. Heidrick & Struggles is a perfect match for the demands Atreus places on itself and its partners,” commented Rainer Nagel.

The brand name Atreus, which is known and appreciated for its high quality, will be retained and will continue to stand for interim management services at the highest level.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About Heidrick & Struggles

Heidrick & Struggles (Nasdaq: HSII) is a premier provider of global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions, serving the senior-level talent and consulting needs of the world’s top organizations. In our role as trusted leadership advisors, we partner with our clients to develop future-ready leaders and organizations, bringing together our services and offerings in executive search, diversity and inclusion, leadership assessment and development, organization and team acceleration, culture shaping and on-demand, independent talent solutions. Heidrick & Struggles pioneered the profession of executive search more than 65 years ago. Today, the firm provides integrated talent and human capital solutions to help our clients change the world, one leadership team at a time.^® www.heidrick.com

About Atreus

Atreus GmbH (LLC), the leading provider of executive interim management in Germany, supports clients in solving particularly challenging change situations by placing experienced executives for line, project and program management tasks. With tailor-made and high-quality services, Atreus Interim Management offers solutions at C-suite level and with relevance to the C-suite level. The company was founded in 2006 and is led by founders and managing directors Dr Harald Linné and Rainer Nagel. With a network of more than 16,000 interim managers, Atreus carried out more than 400 projects for 250 clients in Germany and abroad last year alone.

Heidrick & Struggles
Max Hohenberg, Max.Hohenberg@kekstcnc.com, +49 173 279 1477
Dr. Klaus Westermeier, info@kwestermeier.de, +49 172 843 3232

Atreus
Frank Wöllstein, f.woellstein@wbco.de, +49 69 1338 8035, +49 171 489 7487