WHAT A STRONG CV DOESN'T SHOW The CV was strong. No question about it. Clean C-level layout. The right positions, the right titles. Anyone familiar with the brief would have found every keyword in that document: market development, product positioning, international expansion, P&L responsibility. On paper, this candidate was a better fit than most I had seen throughout the mandate. Then we sat down to talk. THIRTY MINUTES I don't run HR interviews. No questions about leadership style, no...

If you're a company trying to fill a leadership role in the bicycle industry, you're dealing with a real information problem. Reliable salary data for the sector barely exists. Generic job portals mix bicycle OEM roles with unrelated outdoor retail positions — which helps no one when it comes to budget planning or negotiating with a strong candidate. That's the problem we set out to solve. How the benchmark was built The foundation is real conversations. With candidates, hiring managers, and...

In late March, I signed two mandates. Senior Sales Managers for two geographically and culturally challenging territories at a DACH premium cycling manufacturer: Western Germany combined with a parallel BENELUX market entry, and Eastern Germany in the premium segment. Both territories had to be built from scratch — no predecessor, no established distribution network, no revenue. Every additional week of vacancy cost the client immediate market presence. By early May, both employment contracts...