Cash or Continuity? When the investors come knocking

When eager suitors enter the arena, what should the rules of the game be? Short-term profit maximization for shareholders, or longer-term value optimization for stakeholders? When your company is offered a high stock price or an otherwise-tempting..Read more

Are Boards Ready For Digital Disruption? Digitization on Boards 2nd Edition

The pressures surrounding digital disruption and security are intensifying. And the digitization debate is gathering pace. Yet when it comes to exactly how organizations are addressing digitization, the picture remains fragmented and multiple..Read more

Management Versus Leadership

In times of Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things, etc., managers need more than ever before to be adaptable, open to change in leadership culture, and break with old patterns if they are to succeed as leaders.Read more

Best Friends, Toughest Opponents

Companies must learn to cooperate as well as compete if they’re to survive in an increasingly digitized world, says the Managing Partner of Amrop Jenewein, Günther Tengel. And companies are advised to work together selectively, especially in the..Read more

Competence Profiles Versus People

What causes digitization in the consulting market, why new data protection creates parallel worlds, and why Amrop Managing Partner Günther Tengel believes in a human renaissance in the age of the bot.Read more

The New Shape of Work: Why the Only Way Up is No Longer Up

Any credible career should follow an uninterrupted, upward trajectory, or so the assumption goes. Many hiring organizations, executive search firms and leadership candidates still exercise this kind of ‘up or out’ thinking. Yet a growing number..Read more

Personal Governance 7 - Principal 6: Personal Interests and Passions

If your Personal Governance is in good shape, your life will not begin and end at the office. You will be known as someone who cultivates strong interests - passions, even - besides your heavy professional commitments. You may also be a rarity. Read more

Cyber Security: Data Privacy

How Boards Can Safeguard Digital Assets Today For Success TomorrowRead more

Amrop Life Sciences: When Talent and Business Strategies Align

When life sciences companies complain that they can’t find enough good people, the cause, in our view, is most likely to be centered on a misalignment between the strategic goals of the business and the efforts of the company’s talent acquisition..Read more

The Art of the Real: An Interview with Tony Schwartz

In 1985, Tony Schwartz ghost-wrote The Art of the Deal, the book that sold over a million copies and turned Trump into a household name. That experience was one of the drivers that steered Schwartz away from journalism to build an ‘energy..Read more

Amrop 40th Anniversary: 4 Decades of Leadership

Leaders for What Was, for What’s Now and for What’s Next – as Amrop celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2017, find out what Amrop Partners, young entrepreneurs and senior business thinkers have to say about 4 decades of leadership.Read more

Wising Up: Smart Decisions or Sustainable Decisions?

Today’s ethical, ecological and societal challenges call for executives who are not just accomplished and smart, but wise. Smart leaders become wise when they address and resolve the dilemmas of modern business in a holistic way. Hiring..Read more

Return on Character Pays Off

Leadership takes opinions, attitude, integrity. Why many 45+ leaders step out (when they can), and many younger people don’t step up (or want to). Read more

Personal Governance 6 - Principle 5: Personal Development

Good Personal Governance incites lifelong personal development, or éducation permanente. This is a dynamic journey, linked to our personality development, aptitude for reflection, coping strategies, the way we communicate and interact, our ethics -..Read more

Customer Experience 2017: Retail Executives Deliver Their Verdict

Few dispute the competitive value of a great customer experience (CE). And yet, how are retail executives experiencing the organizational journey to excellence? Amrop surveyed a handpicked group of senior retail executives from 25 countries. Read more

From Disruption to Daylight: How leaders are travelling the digital change curve

The journey to digital, from the way you’ve always worked, to the way everyone else is beginning to work, can be viscerally shocking. The digital path leads senior executives through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, to acceptance. Read more

The Challenging Role of Chairs

In many countries, the role of the Chair is evolving. In all organizations, it is vital. Today there’s no shortage of prescriptions. But behind the guidelines, the task is filled with challenges. Amrop's Global Board Practice uncovers nine of..Read more

New Leadership: The Perfect Candidate, Please

A director role is no longer filled by calling around your network. A big pool of talent is found in unexpected places. You need to know how to find it.Read more

Talent Advisor: Job Descriptions Will Disappear - A Press Interview

Günther Tengel, Managing Partner of Amrop Jenewein in Austria, discusses traditional job descriptions and the question of whether the system of the working world is toppling, or evolving in a relatively painless way. Read more

The Great Executive Rebrand: How Top Executives Are Rediscovering Their Core

CEO turnover has risen steadily in recent years and more executives than ever are taking the opportunity to ‘rebrand’ themselves. In the past, that meant a visit to a stylist and a new mantra to practice in front of the mirror. Read more

3D Printing: Is Germany in Need of a Re-boot?

Despite Germany’s pioneering role in developing 3D additive production techniques, and their adoption by the country’s larger players, top management in many of the companies who supply those organizations is still concerned about the risks..Read more

Case Study: Independent Directors in Chile

All over the world, the role of independent directors is gaining ground: in terms of not only the letter but the spirit of regulation. Under Chilean corporate governance law, directorships of listed companies must be renewed or replaced every three..Read more

Personal Governance 5 - Principle 4: Pressure and Stress, Coping and Coaching

Recent months have seen at least three cases of CEOs suffering the physical effects of overload – a heart attack, an on-stage collapse, hospitalization for severe pneumonia. All were aged under 60, as was the former Chief Executive of a major..Read more

Amrop India Series: What's Next in Education?

Far from playing catch-up with India’s policy framework, India’s education sector is ahead of the game. Galvanized by private players, the rapid increase in demand for high quality education has transformed the education sector into a..Read more

What’s Next in Turkey? A New Leadership Model For a Connected Age

We outline the challenges facing Turkey’s business leaders, through the lens of key indicators and cases, and the eyes of Amrop Partner Yeșim Toduk, whose two books exploring the changing face of business leadership in Turkey have received..Read more

Nominations Committees: A User Guide

It has become the norm for Boards to plough time and resources into remuneration and its spin-offs. The time has now come to deliberately engineer strategic, integrated human capital think tanks in the form of cutting-edge Nominations Committees. Read more

Sequential Thinking is a Must

Talent Management: When it comes to finding tomorrow’s leaders, radical new ways forward will be needed, Amrop’s Günther Tengel advises. The curiosity and motivation of candidates will be decisive. Read more

Personal Governance 4 - Principle 3: Self-Reflection, Self-Assessment, Self-Regulation

In today’s turbulent and pressured environments, managers all too frequently find themselves in a metaphorical prison. They slavishly replay old thought patterns, trapped by static world views. Read more

Boards: Embracing Technology is About Innovation

In a fast-changing digital world, the successful businesses will be those that demonstrate adaptability and embrace innovation. Technology opens the door to new business models from manufacturing to marketing functions, while cyber security and the..Read more

A Case of Globalization: Building the Future II - Building a Culture that Drives Agility

As organizations venture down the path of globalization, they encounter a fundamental struggle: maintaining their core DNA across the new markets in which they grow. Their culture and values must be kept alive, whilst designing an organization that..Read more

The Re-Invention of Office Space: When Strategy Becomes Physical

Corporate leadership has to think in much broader terms today – not just about business strategy and people, but also about how those people engage and interconnect. This includes the physical space they inhabit: the office. The way in which it is..Read more

Personal Governance 3 - Principle 2: Ethical Behavior

With trust in business leadership at an all-time low, it’s not surprising that ethics has become such a common word in the lexicon. But what do ‘ethics’ actually mean for you, as a leader? In Part 3 of our series, we take a journey into the..Read more

Crossing Over: The Role Transition From Consulting to Corporate

As anyone who has heard the joke about the consultant and the shepherd knows, professional services firms and corporate organizations often have a love-hate relationship. Yet they share one need – superlative leadership. How do both sides benefit..Read more

Personal Governance 2: Life Plan and Goals

Just as a well-run organization has a guiding Mission, so do managers with good Personal Governance. This ‘Life Plan’ is an ongoing project, far-reaching and carefully orchestrated. It serves as a common thread, a ‘leitmotiv’, to guide,..Read more

Smart Factory, Smarter Leaders: Conversations with the C-Suite

What does the C-suite really think about the Smart Factory? Is it a true paradigm shift? Or a case of the ‘emperor’s new clothes’? How high is the topic on the strategic agenda? What are the implications for human capital? Finally, what could..Read more

Viewpoint: Why Managers Leave Companies

The demographic curve is putting a squeeze on the talent pool of young leaders, and conditions in companies are contributing to dissatisfaction, says Amrop executive search consultant Günther Tengel.Read more

Nominations Committee: Raising the Bar

As day-to-day listed business announcements reveal unexpected high-profile departures and last-minute recruitment scrambles, how can Nominations Committees take a more robust, strategic and wide-ranging approach to succession planning? Join the..Read more

A Case of Globalization: Building the Future - Turning a Downturn into a Catalyst for Growth

How an international MidCap construction business redefined its vision and bridged the gap between aspiration and action. Amrop interviews Heimo Scheuch, CEO of Wienerberger, a 194-year old, international building materials group.Read more

Personal Governance I: The Cornerstone of Corporate Governance and Leadership

Trust in leadership is at an all-time low. Tales of incompetence or negligence dominate business headlines. Other reports paint a grim picture of executives whose mental and physical health, private lives and values are collapsing under the sheer..Read more

The Leadership Contract

In this provocative article, Amrop guest writer Vince Molinaro, bestselling author of ‘The Leadership Contract,’ sets out four terms that all leaders must understand before signing up to the role. Next, Amrop Knightsbridge Managing Partner..Read more

Mobile Payments - New Market, New Leaders

The concept of MP is high on the corporate strategic agenda, impacting people’s daily lives. Individuals and organizations able to surf the waves of change are members of a privileged generation. MP is a booming business. Already in 2013, Gartner..Read more

Omni-Channel Retailing Champions

In Canada, a large and venerable mass-merchant faces a serious rethink in order to evolve its Customer Centricity from ‘art’ to ‘science.’ In China, the e-commerce team of a renowned retailer is confused and frustrated by constant changes in..Read more

Mining: Quest for Talent - Shifts, Stakes and Strategies

As the global economy emerged from the 2009 landslide, business re-engineering, mothballing mining plant and equipment, restricting mining to high-grade areas, restructuring and retrenchments were the order of the day to reduce costs and adapt to the..Read more

Leadership and the Brain III: Brain Olympics

In the third article in our series ‘Leadership and the Brain’, Amrop guest writer, neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart, shares some intriguing and effective ways to lift our business brains from bronze, to silver, to gold-medal standard. If, in the..Read more

Leadership and the Brain II: A New Tool for Agility

In this second article in our series 'Leadership and the Brain', Amrop guest writer, neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart, introduces her new tool for Leadership Agility. As the demands upon leaders reach dizzying levels, this science-based, compelling and..Read more

Low Cost, High Stakes: Motivational Strategies for Hiring and Onboarding

The war for leadership talent, combined with pressure on executive compensation packages, is a challenging mix for hiring organizations. Meanwhile, cases of reckless risk-taking driven by dysfunctional motivation have damaged the reputation of many..Read more

The Courage to Change: Enhancing CEO Succession Through Stronger Board Leadership

It has become nearly impossible for boards to deny the importance of effective succession plans for their CEOs. The topic has been surveyed and case-studied to death. All this work has arrived at the same conclusion: succession management is a..Read more

Watching Me, Watching You: The Hidden Stakes of Leadership Assessment Post-M&A

A merger or acquisition is an enduring yet risky 'reboot' strategy for organizations. And the post-M&A phase is pivotal. Identifying and positioning the right leaders is a matter of vital importance, making their assessment a widespread reflex. Yet..Read more

State Capitalism: A Transformational Tale From the Heart of Europe

Poland made its transition to post-communism in 1989. It is the only European economy to have posted consistent growth throughout Europe's recent recessional drought. This tale concerns the transformation of a group of state-owned behemoths in the..Read more

Make or Break - Why Transition Coaching is Critical for Incoming Executives

Whether you are a senior executive facing your first months in a critical role, or a key internal stakeholder in an incoming leader's transition process, Amrop invites you to explore the emotional landscape facing every new entrant, and discover some..Read more

Leadership and the Brain: A User's Guide to Empathy

As cave dwellers, co-operation improved the chances of our survival as a species, so the instinctive tendency for co-operation is deeply embedded in our brains. If this is the case, why is co-operation sometimes so difficult to establish? In this..Read more

The New CHRO: Balancing, Designing, Leading

Simultaneous shifts in environmental, regulatory, sustainability and geopolitical dimensions have transformed management and placed exceptional demands on leaders. If, as a consequence, human and leadership capital are an unprecedented source of..Read more

Board Evaluation: A Shareholder's Guide

Supervisory and Executive Boards must act in the interests of their shareholders. Not exclusively, but sustainably. How can the owners of a company go about evaluating their highest representatives and their achievements? On what criteria should..Read more

Board Seeks New CEO: How to Transform a CV into a Compelling Boardroom Presentation

How can top executives transform a lengthy CV into a compelling boardroom presentation?Read more

From Transaction to Transformation: 16 Trustbuilding Keys for Hiring Companies & Search Firms

For a relationship between a hiring company and an executive search firm to bring sustainable added value, trust is essential to secure the expectation that a promise will be delivered upon. What trust-building attitudes and actions should we..Read more

Be the Catalyst: 8 Ways for Independent Directors to Be a Positive Force for Change

Spurred by shareholder activism, emphasis on shareholder value enhancement and the imperative to be a responsible corporate citizen, the demands on CEO and Board are becoming stringent. However, in many cases, Boardroom practices do not meet today's..Read more