DEEN
Leadership Consulting & Organisational Advisory
Credo & Mission
We help and support you and your management team in safeguarding and expanding it. Together we pursue three goals: fostering an attitude of self-responsibility, improving performance, developing values.
Trust
in the integrity and competence of your executives and experts.
Self-confidence
towards partners and colleagues on the management team — embedded in a shared duty of care for your firm's profitability and stability.
Optimism
as the guiding principle of a corporate self-image that is hopeful and realistic at once.
These three constitute the basis of achievement-oriented business practice and a successful management culture — integrated into communication, cooperation, leadership routine and decision-making. We help executives and companies to secure these values and to develop them further where necessary.
Mission
We help people and organisations to
Does your organisation possess the structures needed to build trust and entrepreneurial confidence — and do they exist at all? Are you, as a senior executive, acknowledged for entrepreneurship and trust-inspiring leadership — or not? How strong and motivating is the power of your entrepreneurial vision, and are you using this extremely strong element at all?
We help you find answers and implement concrete action steps.
Building trust — and, just as importantly, the confidence you place in your people — into both your corporate vision and your day-to-day management practice is a core leadership task, not an accessory.
Expanding your corporate self-image and vision in this way means reaching and motivating heads and hearts among the people in your organisation. We support you in a systematic, targeted and plannable fashion.
Our offer comprises structuring and moderating critical workshops with all relevant participants. We focus specifically on reaching absolute clarity in defining goals and processes as well as responsibilities.
Put capability where it really counts
Organisations often already have the capability they need — just in the wrong place. We make visible who can actually do what, and bring the two together. Where competence is missing or needs renewing, we help you find it, bring it on board and settle it in properly.
Direct your energy to what works
Time, money and attention are finite. We help you direct them where they move the business. Focus, disruption and consistency are not always comfortable; often, though, adjustment is unavoidable — and we make sure it pays off.
Freedom ↔ Responsibility
Boards and management teams should work efficiently and effectively. Teamwork, meetings and participation are not ends in themselves. Governance and routine communication should serve people, not the other way round. We help you balance subsidiarity, responsibility and the full development of your managers and experts.
We act swiftly and to the point — but in a discreet and confidential fashion.
We offer support and development programmes for senior executives who either recognise themselves, or whose board recognises, the need to improve individual management performance, leadership efficiency or team contribution.
All measures are custom-tailored to the individual executive's needs, integrating current standards and techniques in leadership psychology and management practice. Methodologically we apply proven coaching methods, structured — and often team-related — counselling and training, and career-path working models including internal and external advanced training.
Our approach is thoroughly constructive: it is about enhancement, support and achievement, not the usual focus on personal deficits. We help executives move towards constructive attitudes and behaviours. Our role is that of a business-focused challenger and coach, a change companion, supervisor and sparring partner — as well as a provider of critical feedback.
Advisory & Consulting
Our differentiating factor lies in how these tools are used: not as examination, but as an instrument for self-reflection.
Continuous management evaluation programmes — with a clear focus on feedback, learning and creating sensitivity for often burning organisational needs — are among the most effective tools for improving performance, profitability and the bond between employee and employer.
Applied in the old way, as examination or audit instruments, they achieve little. Applied as powerful instruments for self-reflection and for lifting personal leadership potential, they create effective and trust-building win-win situations for everyone involved.
Comprehensive preparation and close operational alignment with the goals of our mandating clients are essential. Open and intelligent internal communication of these measures is a must.
A decision-support tool for private equity clients: it assesses the likely success of your senior management in four to five hours.
It evaluates leadership efficiency, capacity for change, execution strength and exit reliability. PE|LA© covers the individual level — a single candidate, for instance for a critical CEO role — as well as the team level, such as an entire management board facing difficult change. It was designed and validated in close cooperation with market leaders in private equity and in PE-related professional services.
How the process works
A deep-dive interview, following a tried and tested method built mainly around systematic competency-driven interviewing, is enriched both by substantial elements of semi-structured self-reflection exercises and by online psychometrics. It is completed by a critical and constructive feedback dialogue with the assessed candidates.
It is conducted with the aim of providing evaluations of the highest objectivity, and is therefore executed on a wholly arm's-length basis by a trusted but entirely independent professional partner, Confidence-Consult, in strictest confidentiality.
'Clarity before harmony.'
What the process delivers
When to apply it
What you receive
By applying our measures, the risk of a hiring failure can be substantially reduced — from over 30 % to around 15 %, measured across 18 months.
The integration of new executives and critical specialists into leadership positions — whether recruited externally or promoted internally — does not stop with signing a contract. Why?
Only through professional expectation management, and by sensitising the new executive to the challenges and organisational interfaces ahead, can true and successful integration take place. A full understanding of your individual corporate culture needs to be assimilated into the on-boarding process, and a clear understanding of the expected entrepreneurial responsibility needs to be anchored.
Empirical evidence demonstrates that clarity about mutual expectations assures a high level of identification of the new executive with the firm's corporate goals, as well as their managerial effectiveness. Experience shows that these processes are best carried out by external advisors, benefiting from the necessary equidistance.
We have ample experience in on-boarding and can help you develop it into a meaningful best practice in your organisation.
A selection of highly specialised trainings and seminars.
On the one hand, these topics form an integral part of comprehensive change projects in which we assist our clients over a longer period as their learning and development partner. We serve our clients at different management levels, address various mission-critical issues, and always apply a well thought-through mix of methods and instruments.
On the other hand, our trainings and seminars are often booked as singular measures — in separate one-day or multi-day formats — depending on the particular situation and needs of the managers in charge of leadership and organisational development.
Finally, we are also able to tailor specific formats for our mandating clients. Please feel free to contact us directly. We are happy to share the full scale of our service capabilities with you.
Innovation isn't just about technology. It is about people.
In the fast-paced worlds of Deep Tech, Life Sciences and Green Energy, the greatest challenge in scaling from a visionary start-up to an international market leader isn't funding or product development — it is building the human infrastructure to support exponential growth.
ConCo acts as your strategic partner in navigating these critical transitions. Our practice is specialised in high-knowledge, high-sensitivity sectors — from SaaS and FinTech to renewable energy — where the cost of a bad hire or a dysfunctional team is highest.
ConCo doesn't just fill vacancies; we engineer organisations. Our approach integrates the full lifecycle of leadership excellence. Modern scaling requires more than just headcount; it requires heartcount and strategic alignment.
Whether you are a potential CPaaS unicorn expanding globally or a Clean Tech firm engaging in a crucial pivot, ConCo provides the leadership architecture you need to grow sustainably.
Let's build a leadership culture as innovative as your product.
Search
You want a determined candidate, not a person pleading for a management position.
Key executives should not be treated as applicants. That framing carries — rightly so — a negative connotation.
We strongly favour proactivity and avoid reactive, passive routes such as advertisements. Every communication is PR — and with it your opportunity to position your organisation.
Mission-critical searches should not be mandated to the easiest head-hunter option. Look for a trusted partner who shares your vision, your sensibility and your business views — and who has access to candidates at the right level. Badly structured searches can do substantial damage. The quality of the underlying communication is essential. Raise your level of expectation.
Every appointment ends in on-boarding — otherwise the search was in vain.
By applying our measures, the risk of a hiring failure can be substantially reduced — from over 30 % to around 15 %, measured across 18 months.
The integration of new executives and critical specialists into leadership positions — whether recruited externally or promoted internally — does not stop with signing a contract. Why?
Only through professional expectation management, and by sensitising the new executive to the challenges and organisational interfaces ahead, can true and successful integration take place. A full understanding of your individual corporate culture needs to be assimilated into the on-boarding process, and a clear understanding of the expected entrepreneurial responsibility needs to be anchored.
Empirical evidence demonstrates that clarity about mutual expectations assures a high level of identification of the new executive with the firm's corporate goals, as well as their managerial effectiveness. Experience shows that these processes are best carried out by external advisors, benefiting from the necessary equidistance.
We have ample experience in on-boarding and can help you develop it into a meaningful best practice in your organisation.
Team
Dr Christian J. Eberhardt
Management Diagnostics & Development
Management reviews, audits and assessments, team diagnostics and systematic executive coaching — with a focus on family businesses and private equity.
Mag. Sebastian Körber
Culture Change
A specialist in change processes. His approach starts with the person: he gets to the core of things so that clarity can emerge.
Mag. (FH) Sibylle Hofmann
Direct Search
Combines in-depth know-how in direct search with first-hand experience as a corporate HR manager.
Paul Stricker
HR, Structure and Process
Bridges HR competence and questions of organisational development, across several industries and European countries.
Christian is specialised in management diagnostics. He also works on tailoring development programmes and concepts of corporate talent management.
His operational focus is on management reviews, audits and assessments, team diagnostics and team building, managing systematic feedback processes, and psychologically well-founded executive coaching programmes. He runs structured on-boarding, transition and integration measures for high-value individuals facing new and critical challenges, and he supports our clients through restructuring and post-merger integration phases.
Christian also searches for critical management positions, particularly where social, psychological or culture-fit related issues are at stake. Here he has often focused on small and medium investments of our private equity and family office clients. He brings industry-specific knowledge in industrials and technology, energy and utilities, life sciences, and financial services and FinTech.
Prior to setting up Confidence-Consult, Christian was responsible for the Leadership Consulting business of Heidrick & Struggles in Austria and the CEE region. Before that he worked for Odgers Berndtson (formerly Ray & Berndtson) as regional Head of Management Audit & Diagnostics, and also directed the regional Life Science practice in CEE.
Christian, born in 1975, started his career in leadership consulting in 2001 as product manager for management audits with Ray & Berndtson CEE. Previously he worked in corporate HR and organisational development for Škoda a.s., part of the Volkswagen Group.
He graduated from the University of Regensburg with a master's degree in Applied Psychology and Organisational Science, and earned a PhD in Business and Organizational Sciences. Christian is an alumnus of the BOHEMICUM (East-West Transformation Studies, Universities of Passau and Regensburg) and the author of several publications in the field of management diagnostics and intercultural management.
Sebastian Körber is a specialist in change processes, focusing on team dynamics and on the individual. Profundity, clarity, directness and openness characterise his style, which positioned him early in his career at the top of the coaching and training market at international executive level.
His clear focus is the subject of self-awareness. His approach starts with the person. The aim is to surface personal needs, development opportunities and potential. In his work he gets to the core of things so that clarity can emerge. He invigorates. He stays with his clients as a companion, manages the dynamics, and helps to resolve resistance and inner obstacles on a personal level.
Körber's method is to make often latent content visible, concrete and tangible for individual development. In essence, his technique helps people become conscious of hidden motives and fears. He accompanies that awareness in order to identify genuine personal choices — to deliberately reach for positive alternatives and bravely take a step forward.
Latin America shaped his style and personality. Dealing with emotional, very personal and intense challenges in tough environments made him humble, and it characterises his profile: working as a psychologist in a Peruvian prison, as a trainer for Latin American companies, and for the state of Colombia in its programme for the rehabilitation of guerrillas and paramilitaries. For Weisser Ring Austria, Körber provides crisis intervention for victims of violent crime.
As a clinical psychologist, Sebastian Körber worked for a long period for the Austrian Ministry of Science before focusing on business training and coaching. Since spring 2012 he has been working for Confidence-Consult as an Associated Partner.
Körber, born in 1981, studied business psychology at the University of Vienna and graduated with a master's degree. He subsequently completed postgraduate studies in clinical and health psychology.
Sibylle Hofmann combines in-depth know-how in direct search with first-hand experience as a corporate HR manager.
She is specialised in executive search projects and sophisticated direct searches at expert level. In her projects she draws particular attention to mission-critical issues of team composition and talent development. Sibylle brings a keen sense for cultural and intercultural challenges — for instance in ambitious cross-border collaboration, know-how transfer or market entry scenarios. The quest for the right cultural fit is a key element of the way she conducts searches, and a clear advantage for our clients.
Through her solid network and her insight into different markets and industries, she is able to identify potential candidates quickly, even in challenging environments. Her style is to attract candidates' interest and their motivation for change and career development.
Sibylle brings business know-how in financial services, branded consumer goods and retail, and in professional services.
Since 2017 Sibylle Hofmann has been a Partner in cooperation with Confidence-Consult. Prior to that she worked as Human Resources Manager for Peek & Cloppenburg, taking on national and CEE-wide responsibilities in recruiting and development and in performance management. From 2001 to 2006 she worked as Senior Consultant at two executive search firms, AMROP Jenewein and Odgers Berndtson (formerly Ray & Berndtson CEE).
Sibylle, born in 1978, completed a Master of Arts in International Business Relations in Eisenstadt, Austria, with a focus on Southern and Eastern European markets.
Paul Stricker has been engaged as a senior expert and project manager in various functions of HR management, as well as in corporate development and process engineering, for more than 15 years. His footprint spans several industries and several European countries.
Paul's primary focus is bridging HR competence on the one hand and questions of organisational development on the other — implementing and refining structures and processes. He has demonstrated this expertise in international change and OD projects: the development of group structures for a large utility company in Central Europe, the restructuring of the IT activities of a prominent banking group in the Czech and Slovak Republics, the concept and implementation of a Shared Service Centre in the Czech Republic, the deployment of SAP HCM, and the outsourcing of HR management across eleven countries in CEE and the Netherlands. Most recently he co-managed the integration of a German offshore wind company into a Dutch energy group. As a consultant and as an interim manager, Paul is highly credible in linking HR and IT.
Beyond the hard topics of processes and structures, Paul also covers the so-called soft factors professionally, such as corporate culture and talent management. He brings routine in steering and completing complex, large projects successfully and on time.
His career and his current profile are characterised by a strong personal drive to move into new areas, foster innovation and drive organisational excellence. His experience across different companies and industries — ICT, finance, utilities, renewables and pharmaceuticals — allows him to actively share and transfer best practice. This is clearly among his key success factors in both consulting projects and interim mandates. On a personal level, his reputation with clients and partners is shaped by trustful networking, deep commitment and handshake quality.
Paul, born in 1976, completed a Master of Arts in International Business Relations in Eisenstadt (Austria), Brussels and Budapest. Besides his native German he is fluent in English, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian, and has sound knowledge of Dutch.
Contact
Pursuant to § 5 ECG, § 14 UGB and §§ 24, 25 of the Austrian Media Act. Media owner, service provider and publisher:
Confidence-Advisory GmbH, Vegagasse 11, A-1190 Vienna, Austria.
Managing Director: Dr Christian J. Eberhardt.
Commercial register FN 462187 m, Commercial Court of Vienna. VAT ID ATU71914949.
office@confidence-consult.com, +43 664 4554 240, +49 89 2155 8403.
Management consultancy, management diagnostics, executive search and human resources development. Member of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, Professional Group for Management Consultancy, Accounting and Information Technology. Competent supervisory authority: Magistratisches Bezirksamt für den 19. Bezirk, Vienna. Applicable legislation: the Austrian Trade Act (Gewerbeordnung), available at www.ris.bka.gv.at.
Online dispute resolution: The European Commission provides a platform for online dispute resolution at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr. We are neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.
The content of our pages has been prepared with the greatest care. We can, however, assume no liability for its accuracy, completeness or currency. All links to third-party websites are offered solely for convenience. Confidence-Advisory GmbH assumes no liability for their content; responsibility rests exclusively with the operator of those pages.
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The controller within the meaning of data protection law is: Confidence-Advisory GmbH, Vegagasse 11, A-1190 Vienna, Austria.
All data is treated by us in strict confidence and in accordance with the applicable data protection provisions. We take the protection of your personal data seriously, including on the occasion of your visit to our website. Below you will find the relevant information on the collection and handling of personal data.
Collection of general information. When you access our website, only information of a general nature is recorded automatically. This information (server log files) includes, for example, the type of web browser, the operating system used, the domain name of your internet service provider and similar details. This is exclusively information which permits no conclusions to be drawn about your person. It is technically necessary in order to deliver the content you have requested correctly, and arises unavoidably when using the internet. We refrain, however, from any statistical evaluation of this anonymous information.
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Beyond this, our website is designed to be used without providing personal data. If you contact us by e-mail or another communication channel, the information you provide is stored for the purpose of processing your enquiry and for possible follow-up questions. By sending us specific personal data you grant us — revocably — the right to store this data within the statutory periods. We point out that electronic data transmission (for example by e-mail) may have security gaps. Complete protection of data against access by third parties is therefore not possible.
Erasure and blocking of data. We adhere to the principles of data avoidance and data minimisation. Particularly in search, coaching and assessment projects, we store your personal data only for as long as is necessary to achieve the purposes of the project, or as corresponds to the various retention periods provided for by law. Once the respective project purpose ceases to apply or those periods expire, the data is erased routinely and in accordance with statutory provisions, unless processing is required to defend against potential liability claims.
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Your rights to information, correction, blocking, erasure and objection. You have the right to obtain information about the personal data stored by us about you at any time. You likewise have the right to correction, blocking or — apart from the data storage prescribed for the conduct of business — erasure of your personal data. Please contact office@confidence-consult.com.
So that a blocking of data can be taken into account at any time, this data must be held in a blocking file for control purposes. You may also request erasure of the data, provided no statutory archiving obligation exists. Where such an obligation exists, we will block your data on request. You may make changes or revoke consent by giving us written notice with effect for the future: office@confidence-consult.com.
Changes to this privacy policy. We reserve the right to adapt this privacy policy from time to time so that it always complies with current legal requirements, or in order to reflect changes in our services, for example the introduction of new services. Your next visit to our website will then be subject to the new privacy policy. If you have questions about data protection, please send us an e-mail at office@confidence-consult.com.
The German version of this privacy policy is the legally binding one. This English text is provided for convenience.
To carry out the projects entrusted to us, Confidence may involve Partner Associates (cooperation and consortium partners), and your personal data may be passed on to these Partner Associates. An agreement on the fulfilment of data protection obligations has been concluded between Confidence and the Partner Associates. We disclose its essential content in accordance with Art 26(2) GDPR:
The Partner Associates of Confidence-Advisory GmbH: