The DACH Executive Talent Market: Market Intelligence and Perspective
- Marion Heil
- 17. Sept.
- 9 Min. Lesezeit
What we're seeing in executive recruitment across DACH
The executive market in German-speaking Europe right now is cautious and measured. We're seeing a somewhat sluggish market where both companies and executives are taking their time with decisions. Organizations are being very selective, interview processes are longer, and candidates are carefully weighing their options.
But beneath this surface calm, there are significant shifts happening in what organizations are looking for in their leaders. After working on a multitude of executive searches across the DACH region over the past years, and after countless discussions with companies across all industries and executive candidates across all C-Level functions, I want to share some thoughts on what we are seeing currently happening out there - the functions in high demand, the industries actively hiring, and the leadership profiles that are nearly impossible to find.
Beneath the surface calm, there are significant shifts happening in what organizations are looking for in their leaders.
The Current State of Executive Hiring
The executive search market across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland shows an interesting pattern. Retained search still accounts for nearly 2/3 of the market, which tells you that organizations are willing to invest properly in finding the right leaders. They're just being very selective about it.
What's changed is the timeline and the requirements. Companies are taking longer to make decisions, often interviewing more candidates than before. And they're looking for something different - not just industry expertise anymore, but leaders who can actually navigate change while keeping operations running smoothly.
Where Executives Are Moving (and Where They're Not)
Geographic mobility within DACH remains steady, though with some interesting patterns.
Germany to Austria/Switzerland: We're seeing senior German executives considering opportunities in Austrian mid-sized companies and Swiss multinationals. The attraction – especially for Austria - isn't necessarily about compensation - it's often about governance structures, international exposure, or simply a different business culture.
International to DACH: Cross-border recruitment continues, but success requires more than just international experience. You need someone who understands European regulatory complexity and can adapt to the more consensus-driven decision-making style here.
Consulting to Operations: This transition remains strong. Strategy consultants and advisory professionals moving into operational roles bring analytical skills and transformation experience that many traditional industries desperately need.
The Roles Everyone Wants
Technology and Finance Leadership: Still the Premium Spot
Chief Technology Officers top every list. Manufacturing companies want them. Banks want them. Even energy utilities are looking for CTOs. The challenge isn't just finding technical expertise - it's finding leaders who can translate technology strategy into business value while managing organizational change in traditionally hierarchical cultures.
Chief Digital Officers and Data Chiefs are close behind. But here's what's interesting: many companies are still figuring out what these roles should actually do. We see a lot of searches that get redefined midway as organizations realize they're not quite sure what they need.
Chief Information Security Officers have become absolutely critical. With GDPR, NIS2, and constantly evolving cyber threats, CISOs have moved from IT function to board-level strategic roles. The problem is finding people who can speak both technical language and business language fluently.
Chief Financial Officers remain in steady demand, but the role has evolved significantly. Modern CFOs need to understand ESG reporting, manage digital transformation budgets, and navigate complex regulatory environments, and currently everybody is looking for those crisis-savvy restructuring and cost-cutting skills. Traditional finance expertise alone doesn't cut it anymore.
Chief Legal Officers are seeing increased demand driven by compliance complexity and ESG requirements. European regulatory environments create a constant need for senior legal leadership that understands both legal frameworks and business strategy.
A Mixed Picture
Chief Executive Officers represent the most critical searches, though they're highly selective. We see several main patterns with specific demands: transformation CEOs for traditional companies needing reinvention, growth CEOs for mid-sized to large companies aiming to scale, and particularly in the Southern part of DACH family business succession. The mix between internal succession and external recruitment remains roughly even, with boards increasingly willing to look externally for transformation capability.
Interestingly, the relative quiet on major CEO appointments in 2025 reinforces the cautious market dynamic - boards are holding steady rather than making bold leadership changes. This "wait and see" approach is characteristic of the current DACH market, where stability often trumps transformation in uncertain times.
Chief Sales Officers show interesting patterns - demand varies significantly by industry. B2B sectors like industrial equipment and chemicals seek CSOs who can manage complex, long-cycle sales and international distributor networks. Tech companies want sales transformation leaders who understand subscription models and digital sales. Traditional DACH sales structures often mean multiple regional sales leaders rather than one central CSO role.
The Roles With Lower Current Demand
Chief Operating Officers have seen a decline in traditional C-Suite searches. Many organizations are distributing operational responsibilities across functional leaders or across regions rather than having one central operations role.
Chief Marketing Officers generate fewer mandates than you might expect. Companies often prefer specialized roles - a Head of Digital Marketing or Customer Experience - over broad CMO positions.
Chief People Officer searches are selective. Organizations want transformation-experienced HR leaders, not traditional personnel managers. But there aren't that many positions opening up at C-Level, in many companies these roles are still one level down.
Industry Activity: Where Things Are Moving
The More Active Industries
Technology and Telecom lead in executive hiring activity. AI integration, 5G rollout, platform expansion - there's real momentum here. But even in tech, hiring is more measured than the global tech hubs.
Energy and Utilities show sustained activity driven by the energy transition. The Energiewende in Germany, nuclear phase-out in Switzerland, renewable expansion everywhere - these create genuine leadership needs. Finding executives who can manage both traditional utility operations and renewable transformation is genuinely difficult.
Automotive remains active despite industry challenges. Electric vehicle expertise, software development capability, supply chain transformation - the requirements have fundamentally changed. Traditional automotive executives often lack the digital depth, while tech executives don't understand automotive complexity.
Financial Services maintains steady but selective hiring. Regulatory compliance, digital transformation, fintech competition - banks need leaders who can balance all these pressures. It's a challenging brief.
The Quieter Sectors
Consumer Goods and Retail show moderate activity, mostly focused on digital transformation and sustainability roles. Traditional retail expertise needs significant augmentation with e-commerce and data capabilities.
Manufacturing and Industrial are selective in hiring, primarily targeting digital transformation rather than traditional operational positions. Industry 4.0 implementation requires leaders who can integrate technology without disrupting manufacturing excellence.
Traditional Sectors without major transformation pressure show weak executive movement. Construction, basic materials - these industries hire when they absolutely must, not proactively.
The Executives Everyone Wants (and Can't Find)
High-Mobility Profiles
Digital Transformation Leaders with proven track records remain the most mobile. Organizations want executives who can show specific results from previous transformation projects. The challenge is that there aren't that many executives with this proven experience in European contexts.
Sustainability and ESG Leaders are increasingly mobile, but finding authentic expertise is difficult. Many candidates have ESG in their title but limited experience actually driving sustainable business transformation.
International Executives with DACH Experience - this combination of global perspective and local market knowledge is highly valued. Particularly executives with emerging market backgrounds who understand both international scaling and DACH business culture.
The Challenging Finds
Industry-Technical Hybrids: Executives combining deep industry knowledge with genuine digital capability remain incredibly scarce. Finding someone who understands automotive engineering AND can drive software transformation, and is willing to move in the current climate? That’s a challenging search that might take some time.
Regulatory-Commercial Leaders: People who excel at both regulatory navigation and commercial strategy are rare, especially in financial services and utilities. European regulatory complexity creates very specific requirements.
Multilingual Technical Leaders: German-speaking executives with advanced technical backgrounds and international experience represent a somewhat constrained pool, but are mostly found in German or Swiss international environments.
Family Business Leaders: Executives with successful family business experience yet at the same time experience in hyper-professional global environments who nevertheless thrive in a small-to-mid-sized family environment are often difficult to find. Understanding governance complexity, managing family dynamics while driving professional management - it's a specific skill set.
Austria's Distinctive Market
A Market Characterized by Mid-Sized Players
Austria deserves special attention because its business structures are fundamentally different from Germany and Switzerland. Even the largest Austrian companies are relatively small in international comparison - with a few exceptions at the top like OMV, Voestalpine and the likes, most operate at a scale that would place them in the German MDAX rather than DAX. There are only 50-60 companies with revenues above EUR 2 bn each, and around 60-70 more with revenues between EUR 1bn and 2bn. The rest of them are below EUR 1 bn revenues, but still feature within the Austrian Top 500.
The market is predominantly characterized by (in an international comparison) mid-sized companies – think Red Bull, Swarovski, Palfinger, Wienerberger and many more – internationally ambitious and successful businesses, but often still with a pragmatic and decentralized approach. Many of them are also family-owned, often hidden champions and world-market leaders in their specific niches.
Of course, Austria also has local subsidiaries of global corporations, but many of these function primarily as sales organizations rather than full operational entities. This means executive searches here often focus on commercial leadership rather than full P&L responsibility with manufacturing or R&D functions.
The CEE Gateway Factor
Many Austrian companies, particularly banks like Erste and Raiffeisen but also industrials, still use Austria as their platform for Central and Eastern European market coverage. This means executives here often need CEE market experience to cover for these CEE market footprints.
Limited Talent Pool
The executive talent pool in a small market is simply smaller. For roles with specialized profiles, you're often looking at just a handful of relevant candidates. This means searches frequently require either developing someone internally, bringing in German executives willing to relocate, or convincing international talent that Vienna offers quality of life advantages that compensate for smaller company scale.
Relationship-Driven Hiring
Austria is more network-driven than Germany. Executive networks are smaller, more regionally-focussed on Vienna and some industrial clusters, and more interconnected - people genuinely know each other across industries. This makes reputation and references even more critical. A candidate's track record matters less in isolation than who they know and who knows them.
Language Still Matters
Even for international roles, German language skills often matter more in Austria than in similar positions in Switzerland or multinational German operations. The business culture remains more German-language centric, even in globally oriented companies.
What Makes Austrian Family Businesses Different
Leadership requirements here include navigating family dynamics, succession complexity, and balancing international growth with cultural preservation. Austrian family companies often operate at smaller scale than German competitors, requiring leaders who can achieve efficiency without the resource advantages of larger organizations.
The recruitment challenges are unique:
Decision processes involve multiple family stakeholders
Cultural fit matters enormously
Leaders must be comfortable with close owner involvement
Compensation structures differ from public companies
Finding executives who can thrive in this environment while driving necessary modernization sometimes is genuinely challenging.
Compensation Reality
Switzerland maintains highest compensation levels, followed by Germany and then Austria. But cost of living and quality of life create complex dynamics. Austrian mid-sized and family businesses often compete through non-monetary propositions: direct owner relationships, higher room for manoeuvre, international exposure, cultural authenticity.
What This Means For You
For Organizations
Write future-oriented job profiles. Traditional industry experience plus functional expertise isn't sufficient anymore. You need to define transformation capabilities, stakeholder management skills, cultural agility.
Partner with search firms for pipeline development, not just reactive hiring. The best candidates aren't actively looking - they need to be found and convinced.
Get creative with compensation and value proposition. Pure salary competition rarely works in small markets. Think about what makes your opportunity unique.
For Executives
Build hybrid competencies. Your industry expertise needs augmentation with digital fluency, sustainability understanding, stakeholder management capability.
Consider cross-industry moves. Leadership challenges increasingly transcend traditional sector boundaries. Your transformation experience in one industry often transfers well to another.
Understand your market positioning. If you've successfully driven digital transformation in a traditional but professional company, you're in genuine demand. Position yourself strategically.
Looking Forward
We believe the executive market in DACH won't dramatically speed up in the very near future.
Organizations will continue being cautious, taking time with decisions, seeking perfect fits. But the underlying shifts are real - digital transformation, sustainability mandates, regulatory complexity, geopolitical uncertainty.
The executives who succeed combine deep expertise with adaptive capability. They can integrate complexity rather than just optimize individual functions. They understand that leadership in DACH markets requires balancing transformation drive with cultural sensitivity.
For us in executive search, this means deeper understanding of both traditional industry dynamics and emerging leadership requirements. It means patient, thorough work rather than quick placements. It means really understanding what makes someone successful in these complex, cautious, but fundamentally changing markets.
The future belongs to executives who can navigate this complexity while maintaining operational excellence. That's always been the challenge - and it's more relevant than ever.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marion Heil is the founder and managing director of Board+CEO Advisors. She is based in Vienna.
