Frequently Asked Questions on External Experts and Interim Management

consultingheads places expertise through four models: Independent Consultants for project-based advisory work on strategic decisions, Freelance Experts for deep specialist knowledge in a defined field, Interim Managers who take on line responsibility and lead teams, and Expert Teams combining several specialists for complex undertakings.

The right model depends less on the subject matter than on the role the person is meant to play: advising, delivering, leading, or working as a team. During the briefing, a talent manager assesses your situation and recommends the model that matches the scope of responsibility, duration and budget. All four models run through the same process and the same quality checks.

An independent consultant is the right choice when a question is still open and needs answering: strategy development, transformation design, M&A or any undertaking with entrepreneurial weight. A freelance expert fits when the task is clearly defined and what you lack is specialist depth – a capacity gap in an SAP rollout, a niche controlling topic, a skill your team does not cover.

As a rule of thumb: independent consultants help structure and decide, freelance experts deliver within a defined scope. You can browse available roles by discipline under Experts. Hybrid setups work too: a consultant for the design, a specialist for the delivery.

An interim manager is the right choice when someone needs to lead and decide rather than advise. They take on line responsibility, manage a team and own the result – typically covering a vacant leadership position, a restructuring, a crisis or a critical transition until a permanent successor is in place.

Consultants, by contrast, work on a question without disciplinary authority. So as soon as you need more than recommendations – a leader with budget and people responsibility – an interim mandate is the better fit. Suitable profiles can be found under Strategy & Management. Such mandates typically run from a few months to more than a year.

An expert team pays off when a project requires several competencies at once and no single person covers the breadth – market entry, post-merger integration, scaling, or a transformation with parallel workstreams.

consultingheads assembles the team specifically for your case and deliberately mixes models: someone leading with accountability for results, plus specialists for individual topics. Unlike a traditional consultancy, every team member is chosen for their fit with your task rather than for internal availability. The setup stays scalable as the project evolves – roles can be added or scaled back. The team is assembled in the same time frame in which individual profiles are delivered.

Traditional consultancies bring their own teams – along with overhead, hierarchy and firm margin. consultingheads places independent experts directly with you, and a large share of them have worked at leading strategy firms such as McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Roland Berger or Oliver Wyman.

For you that means comparable expertise at typically 30 to 60 percent lower cost, no pyramid staffing with a heavy junior share, and one person working exclusively on your project. The For Companies page explains how this works in practice; consultancies themselves use the network via consultingheads for management consultancies. And you decide which profile starts – not the firm's staffing desk.

consultingheads is a curated, closed network – not an open marketplace. On platforms such as Upwork or Freelancermap you post the brief yourself, screen the applications and carry quality control alone.

At consultingheads every one of the 22,000+ experts is vetted personally before joining, and a talent manager handles the pre-selection: you receive a hand-picked shortlist rather than a list of search results. That cuts internal screening effort and materially reduces the risk of a bad hire. Contracting, compliance screening and a dedicated point of contact for the whole engagement come with it. Browse the network under Experts.

Neither in the classic sense: consultingheads is an expert network for project-based staffing. Executive search firms look for permanent hires and typically work over weeks or months; consultingheads delivers profiles for a time-limited mandate within 24 to 36 hours and handles contracting and invoicing along the way.

The focus is on independent consultants, freelancers and interim managers rather than employment relationships. Converting an expert into a permanent role later on is possible, but it is not the business model. Read more under About us. Consultancies and network partners can also work with us through the Strategic Advisory Network.

consultingheads works with companies of every size – from owner-managed mid-sized businesses and corporates through to investors and their portfolio companies in private equity. Management consultancies and scale-ups draw on the network as well.

What matters is not size but situation: a project with a clear expectation of results where capacity, specialist knowledge or leadership experience is missing internally. For mid-sized companies in particular this is often the more economical alternative to a permanent hire or a large consulting mandate – targeted, time-limited and without building permanent fixed costs. Individual portfolio companies, country units or single departments can enquire on their own, without a group-wide framework agreement in place.

There are five steps, starting with your enquiry – by phone, by email or via find a consultinghead.

• Briefing: 20 to 30 minutes with a talent manager on the task, the conditions and the team.
• Pre-selection and matching across a network of 22,000+ vetted experts.
• Profiles delivered within 24 to 36 hours – hand-picked, not a database export.
• Interviews with the candidates you want to meet.
• Contracting handled by consultingheads, then project start.

The For Companies page walks through the same process from a client perspective. With a swift internal decision, less than two weeks often pass between enquiry and project start.

The more concrete the starting point, the more accurate the profiles. Useful input includes:

• The task and the expected outcome – what should be different at the end?
• Start date, planned duration and workload in days per week
• Work location: remote, on site or hybrid
• Role and seniority – advisory, hands-on delivery or leadership
• Must-have criteria such as industry, systems or languages
• Budget range and preferred contract model

Missing pieces are not a problem: the talent manager sharpens the requirement during the conversation and advises which expert profile actually fits. Feel free to send an existing role or project description; a formal requirements document is not needed. You can book the briefing slot via find a consultinghead.

Usually 20 to 30 minutes. In that time the talent manager clarifies the task, the target picture, the conditions, the team situation and the timeline – and asks the follow-up questions that later determine how well the shortlist lands.

The call is deliberately compact and replaces requirement documents and tender rounds. You do not need a written role description; a slot with the people accountable for the outcome is enough. The search starts straight afterwards, so you receive profiles within 24 to 36 hours. Book a call via find a consultinghead. For larger undertakings it helps to involve the business unit and procurement together.

Within 24 to 36 hours of the briefing. That is possible because a vetted network of more than 22,000 experts, maintained availability data and pre-selection by talent managers who heard your requirement first-hand all come together.

You do not get database hits but a short list of profiles whose availability and basic interest have already been confirmed. For highly specialised requirements the search can take longer – in that case you hear about it straight away rather than once the deadline has passed. More than 3,000 projects placed since 2016 stand behind the process. Profiles arrive annotated, with the reasoning for why each expert profile fits your task.

You run the interviews yourself; consultingheads arranges the slots and joins if you want. One or two conversations per candidate is typical, usually by video and within a few days of receiving the profiles.

The focus is less on CVs than on your actual task: how would this person approach it, which comparable situations have they handled, how do they fit the team? Afterwards you give feedback to the talent manager – including when nobody convinced you. That feedback feeds directly into the next selection round.

Often within days of your decision. Independent consultants have no employee notice periods, so once the contract and the access rights are in place, the engagement can begin.

Realistically, three things set the pace: how fast you run the interviews, how quickly the contract model is settled, and how quickly IT access, contacts and data are made available. Companies that prepare the internal steps in parallel frequently get from first briefing to project start in under two weeks. Candidates coming out of a running mandate will need a later start date. Interim mandates usually move fastest, since they tend to arise from an acute vacancy and are prioritised accordingly. For freelance experts on contained work packages, the start usually follows the end of their current mandate.

Yes. Many enquiries reach consultingheads at an early stage, when scope, start date or budget are still open. A briefing is particularly useful then, because it gives you a realistic picture of which profiles are available, what seniority your task genuinely requires and what effort sits behind it.

That is solid ground for an internal business case before you commit funds. No obligation arises until you actually award the mandate. Start via find a consultinghead. A pure market check – on the availability of a particular role, for instance – is a perfectly good reason to talk.

The match is assessed across three dimensions at once:

• Professional fit: relevant industry experience, methodological skill and the hard skills the task genuinely requires.
• Cultural fit: personality, working style and communication in relation to your team and leadership culture.
• Situational fit: experience with a comparable project setting – time pressure, resistance, legacy structures.

Situational fit is why two equally qualified profiles can perform very differently. That is why a talent manager assesses every proposal personally instead of relying on algorithms alone. You can see which profiles are broadly relevant to your question under Experts.

Every expert goes through a multi-stage selection process covering professional expertise, project track record and soft skills – before joining the network, not at the point of placement. Client feedback from more than 3,000 completed projects feeds continuously into the assessment.

On top of that sits the personal judgement of talent managers who know many of the experts from earlier mandates. Nothing gets proposed that someone is not prepared to stand behind. That is the decisive difference to open databases, where self-reported claims go unchecked. Browse the disciplines under Experts. Experts without verifiable references are not admitted to the network.

Experts in the network have an average of more than 11 years of project experience. A large share have worked at leading strategy firms such as McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Roland Berger or Oliver Wyman, and many have held line responsibility in industry, financial services or technology as well.

In total the network covers more than 22,000 vetted experts across every functional area – from strategy and transformation through finance and M&A to supply chain, IT and data. You can see the roles covered under Experts and Expertise. Many also bring international project experience and a track record in regulated industries.

Usually a short list of a few carefully vetted profiles – not the longest list possible. That is deliberate: every additional profile costs you screening time without improving the quality of the decision.

Only candidates who fit professionally, culturally and situationally, and who are genuinely available in your timeframe, get proposed. If you need more choice – because several decision-makers are involved, for example – say so in the briefing and the shortlist will be widened. Equally, if only one profile truly fits, that is what you receive, with the reasoning behind it. You also receive a short rationale explaining why exactly these profiles were proposed. If you need several roles at once, an expert team is a better route than a longer list.

Yes – and that is exactly what makes the pre-selection accurate. Typical must-have criteria are industry experience, languages, specific systems or methods, regional presence and seniority. Name them in the briefing and separate must-haves from nice-to-haves.

The talent manager will tell you which combinations are realistically available in the market and where a requirement narrows the field unnecessarily – system knowledge can often be picked up quickly, industry experience cannot. You can see which specialisations are covered under Experts. The clearer the prioritisation, the faster the shortlist arrives – and the fewer rounds you need before deciding.

A second round follows. Because only work you actually accept is invoiced, it creates neither cost nor obligation. Your feedback is what makes the difference: what was missing, what did not work? Requirements often only sharpen once you have seen real profiles, and that sharpening produces a far better search.

Frequently the issue is not the profile but a requirement that was meant differently than it was understood in the briefing. The talent manager works through that with you and comes back with new candidates. Nothing is commissioned until you choose an expert. You can submit a new or sharpened request at any time via find a consultinghead.

Raise it early with your account manager – your dedicated contact for the whole engagement. Together you work out where the gap sits: in professional fit, in the working relationship, or in expectations that were never made explicit.

Billing is based on an agreed daily or hourly rate – and only for work you actually accept. There are no project lump sums, no opaque calculation structures and no hidden mark-ups.

consultingheads invoices the rate to you and pays the expert the day rate agreed with them. You receive one invoice instead of managing several contractual relationships. That gives you cost control: reduce the engagement from five to three days a week and the invoice falls accordingly. Terms for your specific case are agreed in the first call via find a consultinghead. Additional items such as travel costs are shown separately and transparently.

The rate depends on role, seniority, discipline and project duration – an interim CFO in a restructuring is priced differently from a freelance data analyst for six weeks. Blanket figures would be misleading.

Current, maintained ranges are published on the individual role pages, for example for the interim CFO, and in the overviews under Experts. In the briefing you also get a concrete indication for your specific requirement before any profiles are sent – so you know early whether ambition and budget match. For longer mandates or high workloads the rate is usually negotiable by mutual agreement with the expert.

Typically 30 to 60 percent, at comparable professional quality. The reason is structural: with a large consultancy you co-finance hierarchy levels, business development, overhead and the firm's profit margin. With an independent expert the budget goes into the work itself.

A second effect adds to it: you staff exactly the seniority you need instead of paying for a team with a heavy junior share. Consultancies use the model themselves via consultingheads for management consultancies. The longer the mandate runs, the more pronounced this effect becomes.

consultingheads supports three forms:

• Work and service contracts – the standard for freelance mandates: the expert works free of instruction on the basis of a clearly defined assignment.
• Temporary staffing (ANÜ) via licensed staffing partners – where closer integration into internal structures and reporting lines is genuinely required.
• Interim management contracts – for leadership mandates with a defined term and accountability for results.

Which form holds up depends on how the mandate is actually run day to day, not on the heading of the contract. consultingheads helps you classify the setup, provides the documentation and agrees the contract form with you; the legal assessment stays with your own legal counsel. Background is available under bogus self-employment. This is orientation, not a substitute for individual legal review of your case. The contractual framework for the collaboration is set out in our general terms and conditions.

Travel costs, expenses and the extent of on-site presence are agreed explicitly before the project starts and are not part of the daily or hourly rate. Raise the point in the briefing – it affects both the total cost and the pool of suitable candidates.

In practice: if you expect two fixed days a week at your site, say so early so that regional availability is factored into the match. Many mandates run hybrid or fully remote, which reduces travel costs. Placements cover the whole DACH region as well as Belgium and the Netherlands. The right setup is agreed in the first call via find a consultinghead.

Work with three variables: the daily or hourly rate, the workload in days per week, and the planned duration. All three can be estimated realistically in the briefing before you commit funds.

A staged approach works well – a short analysis or assessment phase with a defined output, then the decision on the main body of work. Invoicing runs continuously against documented working days; frequency and payment terms are set in the contract. Because you only pay for work you accept, the budget stays controllable even when the workload changes. Start via find a consultinghead. Build in a buffer for extensions as well – they are more often the rule than the exception. For a short analysis phase, independent consultants with experience in comparable situations are often the right fit.

Extensions are routine and are handled as a follow-on to the existing contract – scope and terms are agreed again, so a changed remit can be reflected properly. Flag an extension early: independent experts plan their capacity ahead, and a good one is rarely still free once the project ends.

The reverse case is equally straightforward. Contracts with independent consultants generally carry short notice periods, so you can wind a mandate down quickly if priorities shift rather than being tied in for months. The specific terms depend on the model – for freelance experts as much as for interim mandates. The general provisions are set out in our general terms and conditions.

Bogus self-employment describes a situation where a formally independent contractor is in fact deployed like an employee – bound by instructions and integrated into your processes and organisation. The risk sits primarily with the commissioning company: an audit by the German pension insurance (DRV) can lead to back payments of social security contributions and taxes as well as further sanctions.

What counts is not the wording of the contract alone but how the collaboration is actually run. The page on bogus self-employment explains how to engage external staff safely. This is orientation, not a substitute for individual legal review. This explicitly includes cases where the contract is well drafted but day-to-day practice tells a different story.

consultingheads uses the FLAC tool developed by the law firm Taylor Wessing. It screens freelancer relationships automatically for indicators of bogus self-employment, evaluates how the contract is set up and flags where adjustments are advisable.

Compared with a manual review the advantage is clear: the assessment is structured, traceable and fast – and it is documented, which matters when evidence is required later. consultingheads also helps classify the setup and provides the documentation on the contract model. More under engaging external staff with legal certainty. The final legal assessment of your case remains with your own legal counsel. It makes sense to run the check before the project starts – and again when circumstances change, on an extension or a shift in remit, for example.

Temporary staffing under the German AÜG comes into play when an assignment requires closer integration than a work or service contract allows – for example day-to-day technical direction or firm embedding in internal processes and team structures. consultingheads covers such setups through licensed staffing partners.

It is not the right route where an expert independently delivers a defined outcome; there the work or service contract remains standard. Which form fits is settled before the project starts, alongside the bogus self-employment screening. consultingheads can arrange either route; what matters is that the chosen form matches how the collaboration actually works. The standard route remains an engagement as a freelance expert on the basis of a delimited assignment.

You should be able to demonstrate that the collaboration really was structured as self-employed work. That typically means the contract with a clearly defined deliverable, proof of work performed and invoices, documentation of how the assignment was delimited, and the outcome of the compliance screening.

Assessments and decisions from the FLAC tool are documented and available as evidence when an audit comes up. What matters is keeping these records during the project rather than reconstructing them afterwards. Background under bogus self-employment; this is orientation, not legal advice. It also pays to live the freedom from instruction consistently day to day – records only convince when practice matches them.

Yes. Every expert signs a non-disclosure agreement before the project begins, protecting sensitive company information. consultingheads itself also treats enquiries, requirement profiles and project details as strictly confidential.

If you want to use your own NDA in addition – with industry-specific clauses or provisions covering competitors, for example – that is possible and should be raised in the briefing. For particularly sensitive projects, agree with your talent manager which information is shared at which stage of the process. Which data and systems the expert genuinely needs to see belongs in that conversation too; the data protection basis is set out in the privacy policy. The contractual framework is set out in addition in our general terms and conditions.

consultingheads operates in line with the GDPR and the applicable data protection laws in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Personal data from your enquiry is used solely to run the placement process, and expert profiles are only shared with the individual's consent.

For the engagement itself, a second question matters: which systems and data the expert will actually be able to access. Define that before the project starts, alongside the provisions in the NDA and the contract. Details are set out in the privacy policy. For projects involving particularly sensitive data, a separate data processing agreement is advisable and should be settled before the start.

Liability follows the contract model chosen and the terms agreed – one reason to settle the contract form deliberately before the project starts. Under a work contract the contractor owes a result; under a service contract they owe professionally competent effort, and warranty and liability differ accordingly.

Whether the expert carries professional indemnity insurance, and to what level, can be established before signing; name any required cover in the briefing. This is orientation rather than legal advice – have draft contracts reviewed individually if in doubt. Background on choosing the contract form deliberately is available under bogus self-employment.

Prepare properly and an experienced expert will be productive within days. What works: sort out access and system permissions before day one, name an internal counterpart, introduce the relevant stakeholders in week one, and put the assignment in writing.

A clear starting point matters most: what should exist after 30 days? External experts rarely fail on subject matter – they fail on missing access to information and decision-makers. A short kick-off with the sponsor, the team and the expert saves weeks later on. Your talent manager supports the start. The For Companies page describes how the move from selection to project start works.

All three are possible and are agreed before the project starts. Many mandates run hybrid: on site for critical phases such as kick-off, workshops or negotiations, remote the rest of the time.

consultingheads places experts across the DACH region – with projects in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Vienna and Zurich among others – as well as in Belgium and the Netherlands. If regular presence at your site is required, name it as a criterion in the briefing, since it affects both the candidate pool and travel costs. Interim mandates with leadership responsibility usually carry a higher on-site share. Mandates that can run remotely are usually filled faster and from a wider pool, because regional availability stops being a constraint. With an expert team, the on-site share is agreed per role.

Through a clearly described assignment: a defined deliverable, a bounded area of responsibility and named interfaces. The expert works towards that outcome independently rather than being slotted into your internal chain of command – which makes sense professionally and matters with regard to bogus self-employment.

In practice: their own assignment rather than day-to-day task allocation, participation in project-related meetings rather than general staff routines. Where closer integration genuinely is required, temporary staffing is the more appropriate framework. Put the assignment in writing and update it when the scope shifts during the project – that protects you both practically and formally.

Yes. The workload is agreed and ranges from a single day a week to full-time. For sparring-partner roles, advisory mandates or projects running alongside the day job, two to three days a week is a common setup.

Because invoicing is based on days actually worked, a varying volume is straightforward too – more presence during ramp-up, less during implementation. Name the workload you want early: it influences which experts are available, since many run other mandates in parallel. Part-time setups are especially common with freelance experts, and rather the exception for interim mandates with leadership responsibility. For sparring-partner and advisory roles, the Strategic Advisory Network is relevant as well.

Yes – either as individually contracted experts or as a coordinated expert team. For larger undertakings such as post-merger integration, market entry or a transformation with several workstreams, that is often faster than staffing roles one after another.

The composition is tailored to your task and stays scalable: roles can be added or scaled back as the need shifts. It pays to name one person with overall responsibility – internally or from within the team – so that interfaces and priorities are clear. Requesting a team runs through the same briefing process as requesting a single expert. For undertakings such as a post-merger integration, parallel staffing is the norm.

Your permanent point of contact is your account manager at consultingheads – for the entire engagement and deliberately outside the working relationship with the expert. That is precisely what makes it easy to raise awkward topics early and directly; no formal escalation procedure is required.

A short check-in after the first two to four weeks works well: is the scope right, are expectations aligned, is anything missing in terms of access or decisions? Most friction can be resolved at that stage by sharpening the assignment, before it affects the outcome. Do not save escalations for the next reporting slot – a short call is enough. The Customers page shows how companies experience the collaboration.

Yes, that is possible and consultingheads supports the transition when both sides want it. After working together you know the person's approach, the quality of their output and their cultural fit from practice – a far more reliable basis than any recruitment process.

consultingheads clarifies the contractual and organisational terms of the move with you and the expert. Raise the subject early and openly rather than shortly before the project ends: many experts have chosen independence deliberately and will weigh up a change carefully. Often a longer-term model emerges from this: a permanent role plus selective support from the expert network.

It depends on the assignment – which is precisely why it should be in writing before the start. Typical deliverables are analyses and decision papers, an implementable concept, a programme set up and ready to hand over, a stabilised function, or a solution actually deployed.

With independent consultants the focus is usually a basis for decision or implementation; with interim managers it is operational accountability in day-to-day business. Describe the expected result as a state rather than an activity – that is what makes success verifiable later. Fix deliverables, dates and acceptance criteria in the assignment before work begins – it saves discussions at the end.

Best done in the briefing and before signing: two to four metrics that genuinely reflect the undertaking, plus a clearly described target picture for the end of the project. Good KPIs are within the expert's influence, measurable within the project window and available without extra reporting effort.

A mix of outcome and progress measures works well – a saving achieved or a lead time reduced on one side, milestones reached on the other. Qualitative criteria belong in there too: acceptance in the team, decision-making capability, readiness for handover. Your talent manager helps scope the assignment so it stays verifiable. With independent consultants goals tend to be content-driven; with interim mandates they are more operational and tied to the unit's own metrics.

Three signals: the expert has grasped the starting position independently and is asking the right questions, they deliver a tangible interim result early, and collaboration with the team runs without constant steering from you.

Concretely, agree an interim output after two to four weeks – a diagnostic, a plan of approach, a first decision paper. If it does not materialise, that is early enough to correct course. Use the check-in with your account manager at this point too: adjusting in week three is far easier than in month three. With interim managers the effect usually shows even earlier, because they take on responsibility immediately. With independent consultants, the focus at that point is usually a first substantive assessment.

Reporting format and rhythm are agreed at the start and scale with the size and criticality of the project. A short weekly status exchange with the internal sponsor plus a condensed update for the steering committee or management at longer intervals is common.

Structure matters more than frequency: progress against plan, open decisions, risks and the next milestone. Experienced experts bring their own formats – you do not need to invent anything. In parallel, your account manager at consultingheads stays the contact for the working relationship itself. Agree the format and the audience in the kick-off. With an expert team, a joint status format across all workstreams is added.

By making knowledge transfer part of the assignment rather than an afterthought. Define from the outset who is involved internally, what documentation is produced and in what form it is handed over – process descriptions, decision logic, templates, system configurations.

Working side by side is the most effective mechanism: an internal counterpart involved from day one retains more than any closing document conveys. For interim mandates, briefing in the permanent successor belongs in the assignment as well, if the role is to be filled long term. Plan the transfer as its own workstream with dedicated time – otherwise it is the first thing to be dropped under deadline pressure.

Planned, not improvised: schedule a handover date at project start and prepare it concretely a few weeks before the end. It covers the agreed deliverables, the documentation, open items with clear ownership, and a comparison against the goals defined at the outset.

A short closing review with the internal sponsor and your account manager at consultingheads works well – and doubles as the basis for follow-on topics. If further need emerges, the mandate can be continued or filled deliberately with a different profile from the expert network. Also record who owns the remaining open items after the handover.

You typically receive hand-picked profiles within 24–36 hours; the intro call then decides the start. Exclusivity windows and bid deadlines leave no room for a tender process, so your talent manager works from a 20–30 minute briefing and draws directly on pre-vetted profiles from a network of more than 22,000 experts. For commercial, financial or technical due diligence we staff for situational fit – experience with comparable transactions, asset classes and data room situations. See M&A due diligence experts, or the investor overview at consultingheads for private equity.

Yes. We staff PMI roles with consultants who have owned integrations operationally – from the 100-day plan through process and system harmonisation to bringing teams together. Many of our experts spent time at leading strategy firms and then took on line or programme responsibility; on average they bring more than 11 years of project experience. For add-on acquisitions we use the same profiles, because synergy assessment and integration belong together. Start with post-merger integration consultants or our PMI expertise.

Every expert signs an NDA before the project starts, the engagement is set up in line with GDPR, and your own project-specific agreements can be added. Because in a transaction even the existence of a process is sensitive, we brief candidates in stages: anonymised context first, specific target information only after contracts are signed. Potential conflicts of interest – a parallel mandate in the same market segment, for example – are cleared before we introduce anyone. Our network is closed and curated, so requests are never posted publicly. See private equity and independent consultants.

Yes – that is exactly what interim management is for. The expert takes a defined leadership role inside the portfolio company, leads teams and owns results rather than recommendations. Typical situations are a turnaround, stabilisation after a management change, or a plant that keeps missing its numbers. We staff for situational fit, meaning managers who have already worked through a comparable restructuring or crisis, and we agree the reporting line into your deal team up front. More at interim manager and restructuring & operational efficiency.

Yes, we staff every phase, but deliberately with different profiles: market and target screening in sourcing, subject specialists in due diligence, hands-on operators in the post-acquisition phase, and M&A-experienced advisors for exit preparation. A single expert is often enough for a contained question; when several workstreams run in parallel we assemble an expert team. Because each phase is briefed afresh, no rolling retainer builds up – you pay the agreed daily or hourly rate for work actually delivered. Overview at private equity and expert teams.

During the holding period what counts is measurable delivery against the investment case. So we staff experts who operationalise measures and build reliable KPI monitoring, rather than only quantifying potential. Typical levers are procurement and supply chain, pricing and margin management, working capital, and digitalisation and automation inside the portfolio company. We align the assignment with your operating partner so external capacity complements internal steering instead of creating a second reporting line. Good entry points: operations & process improvement and finance & controlling.

You usually receive suitable profiles within 24–36 hours, and the assignment starts without you building permanent capacity. That is the point of a utilisation peak: you scale up and back down per project instead of carrying bench risk in your own structure. Many experts in our network previously worked at tier-1, tier-2 or tier-3 firms and know the pace, quality bar and documentation standards of consulting work – so they bring the craft, not just the subject knowledge. More at consultingheads for management consultancies and freelance experts.

If a consultant drops out at short notice, consultingheads sources an alternative profile for the mid-mandate vacancy quickly. What matters is not only the subject area but the role level: replacing a senior consultant calls for a different profile than replacing an engagement manager who owns steering and the client relationship. So we brief on role, outstanding deliverables and remaining project runtime, and typically deliver profiles within 24–36 hours. For leadership roles, interim managers usually fit; for contained work packages, freelance experts.

Yes – deployment in your client projects is the standard case, contractually usually as a service or work contract between your firm and consultingheads, so your client relationship stays untouched. Where your end client requires temporary employment arrangements, we work with licensed staffing partners. To de-risk freelance constellations we use the FLAC tool from law firm Taylor Wessing, which reviews and documents engagements for indicators of bogus self-employment. That is guidance, not a substitute for your own legal review. More at bogus self-employment and for management consultancies.

We select for cultural and situational fit alongside expertise – whether someone can carry your methodology, your presence and your end client's expectations. In practice that means experience at a comparable role level, confidence in the steering committee and in presenting results, and clean documentation in your templates. You speak to the candidates yourself before the assignment and make the call. If someone does not fit the mandate, account management reviews it and provides an alternative profile quickly. See independent consultants and our page for consultancies.

Yes – contained specialisation is exactly what the freelance experts model is for. For consultancies it is usually the more economical route: a topic like SAP S/4HANA, cloud architecture or generative AI appears in a handful of mandates a year and does not justify a permanent hire, yet it often decides whether you win the pitch. We staff these roles from a network of more than 22,000 vetted experts – as a standalone work package or alongside your own team. Entry points: SAP & enterprise systems and AI & machine learning.

Every expert signs an NDA before the project starts, covering your methods, your tools and the identity of your end client; the engagement is set up in line with GDPR. For consultancies the conflict question matters just as much: before we introduce anyone we check whether they are currently on a competing mandate or at the same end client, and we agree exclusions or cooling-off periods with you. Because our network is closed and curated, these arrangements run through named contacts rather than an open platform. More at consultingheads for management consultancies and about us.

You start with a 20–30 minute briefing call; your talent manager takes it from there. For mid-sized companies that is the real difference from a formal tender: you do not write a specification or compare vendors, you describe the situation – an upcoming ERP rollout, say, or a key position you cannot fill. We translate that into a requirements profile, pre-select candidates and usually deliver hand-picked profiles within 24–36 hours. You then decide in a personal conversation. More at consultingheads for mid-sized companies and for companies.

You pay an agreed daily or hourly rate for work actually delivered – no project lump sums, no hidden mark-ups. Compared with traditional consultancies the cost advantage is typically 30–60 %, because you engage one experienced person directly instead of co-financing a project pyramid. For a mid-sized company the practical point is that you can start small – a few days of analysis – and only then decide on the full scope. The rate depends on role, seniority and project length; the maintained ranges sit on the individual role pages under experts by area. See also mid-sized companies.

For vacancies in key functions we deploy interim managers who take line responsibility and run day-to-day business rather than only advising. In a mid-sized company such a position usually carries more than one role: year-end close, bank discussions, cash management and team leadership all sit with the same person. So we staff for situational fit and make sure the candidate covers the breadth of a mid-market function, not just one corporate slice. On request the interim manager then hands over to your permanent hire. More at interim manager and commercial manager.

Usually someone who covers strategy and delivery at once, because in a mid-sized company there is rarely a project office behind it. The typical fit is an experienced digitalisation consultant who first maps processes and the system landscape, derives a pragmatic roadmap from it, and then supports the rollout – of an ERP or CRM system, for instance – hands-on. Experience with comparable company sizes is decisive: corporate methodology overwhelms grown structures and ties up capacity you need for daily business. Entry points: digitalisation consultant and digital transformation consulting.

We brief on outcomes rather than documents from the start: what should be measurably different afterwards – lead time, inventory levels, on-time delivery, quality of the year-end close? We then select profiles with a hands-on track record, people who have implemented and led in comparable companies, not only analysed. In a mid-sized business this is decisive, because there is no staff function waiting to operationalise a recommendation. If the working style does not fit, account management provides an alternative quickly; freelance contracts usually carry short notice periods. See mid-sized companies and operational efficiency.

Cultural fit is a selection dimension in its own right for us, on a par with technical fit. In a family business it decides the outcome: outsiders meet long-standing loyalties, short decision paths and choices balanced between the owning family and the management circle. So we propose profiles that have accompanied handovers before – from clarifying succession scenarios and stabilising the company with an interim managing director through to coaching the next generation. You meet the candidates in person before the assignment and decide yourself. More at mid-sized companies and interim managing director.

consultingheads contracts with your company directly rather than brokering individual self-employed people. That means one supplier, one invoicing entity and one point of contact, even when several experts are working across different divisions. The usual setup is onboarding into your supplier systems and cooperation under a framework agreement, with individual assignments commissioned as service or work contracts underneath it. Where procurement mandates a temporary employment arrangement, we work with licensed staffing partners. Only accepted work is invoiced. More at consultingheads for corporates and for companies.

To review freelance arrangements for bogus self-employment we use the FLAC tool from law firm Taylor Wessing: automated assessment, documentation and preparation for audits by the German pension insurance authority. For a corporate the evidence trail is what matters most – your compliance and legal teams receive documented input they can assess. In addition, every expert signs an NDA before the project starts and the engagement is set up in line with GDPR. This is guidance and does not replace your own legal review. More at bogus self-employment.

Where your in-house team is at capacity, or where a topic does not justify permanent coverage. Internal units are strong on methodology, group knowledge and stakeholder navigation; what gets bought in is specialist knowledge for a limited phase – SAP architecture, cybersecurity, ESG reporting obligations or specific AI use cases. The proven split is clear: your unit steers the programme, external experts deliver contained workstreams and hand back documented results. When several packages run in parallel we assemble an expert team. Overview: corporates and areas of expertise.

Yes – for several parallel workstreams we assemble an expert team rather than delivering single profiles one after another. In group programmes the bottleneck is rarely subject expertise; it is alignment across country entities, plants and differing system landscapes. So we prioritise profiles that have owned rollouts in matrix organisations, and we add a programme lead reporting into your steering committee where needed. Replacements during the programme can usually be handled within the existing framework; we agree the route with you up front.

Through interim management: the expert takes the line role – CFO, COO or plant manager, for example – including leadership and P&L responsibility until the permanent appointment is made. In group structures governance is what decides success, so we clarify up front who the interim manager reports to, which approval limits and powers of representation apply, and how handover to the successor is organised. You normally receive profiles within 24–36 hours, so the vacancy does not stay open for a whole quarter. More at interim manager and interim CFO.

Only work that has actually been accepted is invoiced, based on the agreed daily or hourly rate – no project lump sums, no hidden mark-ups. For a corporate, allocation is the critical part: assignments can be tracked separately per purchase order, division or cost centre, so your controlling function sees costs where they arise and open commitments stay clean. The model is transparent by design – consultingheads charges you a rate, and the consultant receives their agreed daily rate through consultingheads. Details at corporates and for companies.

For funding rounds we deploy consultants who build the equity story, financial model and data room from an investor's point of view and stay with the process through to signing. For scale-ups the story is rarely the problem; the substance behind it is – consistent KPI definitions, clean cohort and unit economics, a plan that survives due diligence. So we prioritise profiles who have seen rounds from both sides of the table. After closing, the same assignment can extend into an investor reporting setup. More at consultingheads for scale-ups and finance, M&A & controlling.

Yes, and for scale-ups it is often the smarter route: an interim CFO or COO builds the structures while you take your time on the permanent search – without carrying a senior salary before the role is genuinely full. Assignments can run part-time, two or three days a week, so you buy seniority without committing a full package. If the collaboration works, a later move into a permanent position is possible and we support that transition. More at interim manager and interim CFO.

This calls for consultants with scaling experience who can navigate between two failure modes: too little structure, so quality and reliability slip, and too much structure, which suffocates the pace of a growing team. In practice it usually comes down to roles and accountabilities, forecasting and planning routines, a tool setup that carries the next growth step, and onboarding that keeps up with your hiring speed. We staff for situational fit – people who have already been through a comparable growth phase. Entry points: scale-up consultant and consultingheads for scale-ups.

You pay only for work actually accepted, based on an agreed daily or hourly rate – no project lump sums and no minimum commitment over months. For a scale-up that means assignments can be cut to a few days a week, phased around your roadmap, or limited to one clearly defined result instead of tying up a full-time mandate. Cash outflow stays predictable and aligned to your milestones. The rate depends on role, seniority and project length; maintained ranges sit under experts by area. See also freelance experts.

That is anticipated: freelance contracts usually carry short notice periods, and the shape of an assignment can be adjusted without starting over. In a scale-up the priority list moves faster than any project plan – a round drags on, a market entry is pulled forward, a product issue suddenly becomes critical. If the new situation calls for a different profile, your talent manager provides an alternative quickly, again typically within 24–36 hours. Assignment lengths range from a few weeks to more than a year. More at scale-ups and freelance experts.

Yes – moving into a permanent position after the project ends is possible and we support the process. For scale-ups this is often the most pragmatic route to a senior hire: you work together for months before deciding, so both sides know the requirements, the team and the working style instead of relying on an interview process. The precondition is that the role is genuinely full by then; until it is, the interim assignment carries it. Raise the idea early with your talent manager so we propose profiles open to a permanent move.

You fit if you bring consulting or leadership experience at project level and deliver on your own responsibility. For consultants we look for at least two years of professional experience in a top-tier management consultancy. For interim experts, more than ten years of experience, proven expertise in your industry or specialist field, and genuine leadership strength.

More than 22,000 vetted experts are already part of the network, with over eleven years of project experience on average; many have worked at leading strategy consultancies. What matters most is not the CV alone, but whether you have solved a comparable project situation before. You will find the details on For Consultants.

It means a role at a well-known, reputable management consultancy – not advisory work in the broader sense.

So the requirement is not met by calling yourself a consultant, by having advised colleagues internally, or by having supported consulting projects on the client side. What counts is that you worked at a management consultancy and built the corresponding know-how there: analytical method, structured approaches, delivering under time pressure, presence in front of the client. Where a request names this requirement, it is always mandatory – we do not interpret it more loosely, because the client sets it. If you do not bring it, requests in other areas of expertise remain realistic.

We look for profiles across four engagement models: independent consultants for strategic decisions, freelance experts with deep functional specialisation, interim managers taking line responsibility, and expert teams for complex programmes.

The functional range spans strategy, transformation and digitalisation, finance, M&A and controlling, supply chain, SAP, cloud, data and AI, cybersecurity, HR and ESG. Industries served include industrial and automotive, financial services and private equity, healthcare and pharma, technology, retail, energy, transport and logistics. The overview of expert areas shows which fields are currently covered.

You start your registration via the consultant registration, and it takes three steps. First you enter your details, upload your profile and specify your project preferences: when, where and how much you want to work.

After that you receive project requests that match your profile, and you decide yourself whether a request is of interest. If the terms work for you, we bring you into direct conversation with the client. Only once you confirm after that conversation does the assignment through consultingheads come about. The more precise your details, the better matched the requests that reach you. Map your profile to the right areas of expertise – it improves how well requests match.

Your profile is reviewed and then activated for the network – there is no selection interview as a precondition for joining.

consultingheads is a curated, closed network rather than an open marketplace: every profile is looked at by a person. We assess technical expertise, project experience and soft skills, complemented by the talent managers’ personal judgement and ongoing feedback from client projects. An individual qualification conversation only takes place once a concrete project request matches you. It centres on the professional and personal fit for exactly that request: the starting position, the decisions you made, the measurable outcome – and, the other way round, whether role, industry and working model suit you.

A meaningful profile or CV with project history is the core: role, industry, company size, project objective and outcome. It also helps to state languages, certifications, willingness to travel, as well as your expectations regarding rate and workload.

• Project references with concrete results rather than task lists
• Preferred locations or share of remote work
• Topics you deliberately want to expand into

Always keep your availability in the portal up to date – it is the basis for suitable requests reaching you in the first place. The same applies to focus and rate: what is not in your profile cannot be considered in the matching. You can maintain changes yourself at any time or pass them to your contact via For Consultants. Your profile should make clear whether you come in as a freelance expert or in a leadership role.

Yes. You can approach the consultingheads team at any time and get feedback on your profile or CV.

This is not an assessment session but practical feedback: where your project history stays too vague, which results belong at the top, which strengths get lost in the text, and how your profile reads from a client perspective. Because your profile is the basis for every request, that outside view usually pays off quickly – especially when you want to reposition yourself or open up an additional field. Simply get in touch with your contact; you will find the route on For Consultants.

The remuneration model sits on the client side: consultingheads charges the client an hourly or daily rate and funds selection, contracting and compliance checks from it.

For you that means you receive the rate agreed with you – without hidden mark-ups or subsequent deductions. You set your own rate. How this works in detail is explained on For Consultants and in our answers on fees and invoicing.

Project requests originate from concrete client needs, not from a job board. A talent manager takes a briefing from the company – task, scope of the role, situation, timeline – and matches it against the profiles in the network. If your profile fits, we contact you directly before your profile goes to the client.

Because consultingheads delivers hand-picked profiles to clients within 24 to 36 hours, up-to-date information on your availability and focus is decisive. You then decide yourself whether we submit your profile for the request. More on the process on For Consultants. Keep your focus areas current along the areas of expertise so requests reach you accurately.

We match along three dimensions so that requests fit in substance, not just on paper: professional fit, cultural and personal fit, and situational fit – whether you have already solved a comparable project situation. On top of that come your own parameters regarding location, workload, willingness to travel and rate.

The aim is explicitly not to send you as many requests as possible. Senior experts are busy, and every irrelevant request costs you time. If requests repeatedly miss the mark, that is a signal for us – tell your contact so we can sharpen your profile and map you to the right areas of expertise.

Yes. Skills named in a project request must be demonstrably in place – they are not read as “nice to have”.

The reason is straightforward: the requirements come from the client briefing, and we do not submit profiles that fit on paper and fall apart in the client conversation. Demonstrable means concrete – projects in which you applied the skill, with role, context and result, and documented accordingly for tools and certifications. A topic you feel confident about but have never applied in a project does not belong on that list. If one point is missing, say so openly; often another request is the better fit.

No. You remain self-employed and decide which engagements you accept and how you acquire them. Joining the network does not come with an obligation to work exclusively through consultingheads.

What we do need is transparency during an ongoing process: when we submit your profile to a client, it should be clear whether you have already been introduced there through another route. That avoids duplicate submissions, which harm both you and the client. Working for several clients in parallel is explicitly possible – see also our answers on bogus self-employment.

Nothing to your disadvantage. You decide with every request whether topic, role, location, timing and terms work for you – declining is part of the model, not a reason to be excluded from future requests.

A brief reason helps: wrong timing, unsuitable scope of the role, too much travel, or terms outside your range. That feedback feeds directly into the next matches and improves the hit rate. It is equally legitimate to finish a running project properly first – we will look after the next one in parallel. More on For Consultants. If a request only partly fits, it may come back to you as a role within an expert team.

The pace is primarily set by the client. The process itself is built for speed: after the briefing, hand-picked profiles go to the company within 24 to 36 hours, followed by introductory conversations and – if both sides agree – the assignment.

How much lead time lies between confirmation and the first project day depends on the situation: vacancies, crises or restructurings – the typical situations for interim managers – can move very fast, while planned transformation programmes usually allow more lead time. The start date only becomes binding with the assignment – so do not rearrange your capacity on speculation. For independent consultant assignments the lead time is usually longer, because internal decision paths add up.

As a rule you work on your own hardware. Where system access is required, or where a project is particularly critical, the client provides hardware, VPN access or a terminal server.

Which variant applies is the client’s decision, based on their security requirements, and it is clarified before the project starts rather than on day one. Allow some lead time, because shipping devices, accounts and approvals often take a while internally. Your own equipment is at the same time a characteristic of self-employed work – the page on bogus self-employment puts that into context.

Notice periods depend on the project and are set out in the respective project contract – there is no blanket period covering all assignments.

How long the period is depends on client, role and initiative: a short capacity assignment is governed differently from a mandate with line responsibility running over several months. So review the clause before signing, together with the deliverable, the term and any extension option – the contract is what counts, not the project description. If you need a period that fits your capacity planning, raise it before the assignment is confirmed. The general contractual basis is set out in the general terms and conditions. This context does not replace individual legal advice.

After a project ends your profile stays active in the network and we keep looking for suitable assignments – ideally starting while your current project is still running. Project durations range from a few weeks to more than a year, and extensions or follow-on projects with the same client do occur.

A clean handover pays off: feedback from client projects feeds into the network's quality assurance and influences future matches. And if both sides want more, moving into a permanent position after the project is possible – we support that step rather than blocking it. How the collaboration is set up overall is explained on For Consultants. Follow-on topics often come through expert teams, where several specialists work together.

You set your own daily rate. consultingheads only puts forward offers that meet your financial expectations – negotiating you down against your will is not part of the model.

What remains realistic: what the market bears depends on role, seniority, specialist field, region and project duration. Interim mandates with line responsibility follow different benchmarks than a clearly delimited specialist topic. Guidance on typical market ranges can be found on the respective role pages, for example for interim managers or freelance experts. Tell your contact openly where your lower limit is.

Transparently and without detours: consultingheads charges the client its own hourly or daily rate and pays you the rate agreed with you. There are no hidden mark-ups on your invoice and no subsequent deductions from your rate.

For you that means the amount you agreed is the amount you receive. For the client it means they pay for selection, contracting and compliance checks – you do not. This separation is deliberate, so that negotiations about your rate are not settled at your expense. More on For Consultants.

Invoicing is based exclusively on an approved timesheet – on an hourly or daily rate basis. Without that approval, nothing is billed.

In practice: you record the hours or days you have delivered, submit the timesheet and have it approved; only then is the agreed rate billed. Project lump sums or success-based deductions are not part of the model, and neither are hidden mark-ups. Cycle, format and deadlines are set out in your contract for the respective project – clarify them with your contact at consultingheads before the first project day so that the first billing run does not get stuck on formalities.

Billing runs as a self-billing process: consultingheads issues the credit note, and you do not write an invoice of your own.

Technically this runs through the zeit.io tool. You record your time there and generate the timesheet. Once the timesheet is approved, consultingheads issues the credit note on that basis at the agreed hourly or daily rate; you check it and do not have to invoice anything yourself. For you that means less administrative effort and one consistent route for every assignment through consultingheads. What matters is keeping your time records in zeit.io complete and up to date, so approval does not stall at month end.

Payments are made under the terms agreed in your contract. The specific payment term is set out in your agreement for the respective project and is clarified before the project starts, not afterwards.

Important for your risk position: your assignment runs through consultingheads, not through a pure platform introduction where you have to chase the end client yourself. How delays on the client side are handled is governed by your contract; raise any open points before signing. More on the model on For Consultants.

The payment term is 30 days.

It applies towards consultingheads: your contractual counterparty, and the party that pays you, is consultingheads – not the end client. So you never have to chase an end client when things take longer internally there. The basis for payment is the approved timesheet, which means the sooner you record your time and have it approved, the sooner the term starts running. All further conditions for the respective project are set out in your agreement and clarified before the project starts, not afterwards.

There are two models for travel costs and expenses; which one applies depends on the client and is clarified before the project starts.

• Included in the daily or hourly rate – an all-in rate that already covers travel and incidental costs
• Reimbursement against receipts, on top of your rate

Clarify before signing which of the two applies to your assignment: with an all-in rate you need to factor travel into your calculation, with reimbursement you need clean receipts. Projects run across the entire DACH region as well as Belgium and the Netherlands, remotely and on site – in locations such as Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Vienna or Zurich. Keep your willingness to travel current in your profile via For Consultants.

With project durations ranging from a few weeks to more than a year, extensions are not unusual – but they are not rolled over automatically, they are explicitly agreed. For an extension too, scope, period and rate are set out in the agreement.

If the scope of your role changes during the project – additional responsibility, wider scope, significantly more travel – that is a reason to revisit the terms rather than absorb the change silently. For interim mandates with line responsibility this is worth watching especially closely. Let your contact know early; this is far easier to settle before an extension than in the middle of delivery.

Because the risk affects both sides. If an assignment is later classified as dependent employment, it is not only about back payments on the client side, but also about your status as a self-employed professional, your contracts and your planning certainty.

consultingheads therefore assesses freelance relationships systematically using the FLAC tool from the law firm Taylor Wessing: automated review, documentation and preparation for audits by the German pension insurance. That creates a solid, documented basis instead of relying on gut feeling. Background on bogus self-employment. This does not replace individual legal or tax advice.

It ensures the collaboration in practice looks the way it is meant contractually. Among other things, the review covers whether your deliverable is clearly delimited, whether you decide independently on working hours and approach, and whether you visibly act as an external service provider.

• A clearly defined deliverable rather than open-ended team membership
• Your own equipment and independent work organisation, as far as the project allows
• No integration into internal hierarchies or holiday planning

These points protect your status. If requirements arise during the project that contradict them, raise them – with us and with the client. The criteria are summarised under bogus self-employment. As a freelance expert, this is what keeps your status intact.

The standard case is a contract for work or services: you deliver a defined scope independently and free of instructions. Where a constellation does not allow this, temporary staffing via licensed staffing partners is possible; for interim mandates, interim management contracts are an additional option.

Choosing the contract type is not a formality – it follows how the collaboration actually works in the project. Which form makes sense for your assignment is clarified with you and the client before the assignment. Background context is available on bogus self-employment; for your specific situation, seek your own legal advice if in doubt. For independent consultant mandates, the contract for work or services is the usual framework.

Yes. All experts in the network sign a non-disclosure agreement before a project begins. That is the precondition for clients – from private equity firms to corporates – to staff sensitive topics such as transactions, restructurings or security projects externally at all.

Data is handled in line with the GDPR. For you this means project content, client names and results stay confidential, including towards other clients and in your own references. If you want to use a project as a reference, clarify beforehand in which form that is permissible – usually an anonymised description of the situation and your contribution is the workable route.

As an independent consultant you are in principle liable for your own work; the specific scope follows from your project contract, which sets out the deliverable, acceptance and liability provisions. Read these clauses carefully before signing – they, not the project description, are the actual benchmark.

Whether an assignment requires proof of professional indemnity or financial loss liability insurance depends on the client, the role and the project content; we will tell you before the assignment. Independently of that, appropriate insurance cover is common for professionally operating independents. For your specific situation, please seek your own legal advice.

Yes. Assignments through consultingheads require financial loss liability insurance – this is a consultingheads requirement, not a statutory insurance obligation.

The reasoning is practical: consulting work typically does not cause physical damage but financial loss, for example when a recommendation or an implementation error hits the client financially. Without that cover you are liable with your business and private assets. So sort out the proof early, ideally before the assignment is confirmed, and check the sum insured and scope of cover against the projects you take on. What level of cover is appropriate depends on role and project content; this context does not replace individual legal or insurance advice.

Yes, working for several clients in parallel is possible – and from a status assessment perspective it tends to support your self-employment rather than undermine it. Joining the network does not create exclusivity.

What we do expect is that you do not accept a further mandate before you have talked to the client about it. That is not an exclusivity clause but an expectation about how we work together: the client plans with your capacity, and an open conversation prevents surprises in the middle of a project. You should also keep an eye on non-compete clauses in your project contract and your confidentiality obligations under the NDA. A general statement on legal consequences is not possible here; when in doubt, an individual legal review is the right route.

You refer companies from your network that need external expertise – typically where there is a vacancy, a transformation programme, a transaction or a capacity gap. The client segments include private equity, management consultancies, mid-sized companies, corporates and scale-ups.

A referral makes sense whenever you know the situation inside the company and can judge that a freelance expert or interim manager would genuinely help there. How the program works in detail is set out on the referral program page.

In three steps: you introduce a company from your network to consultingheads. We enter into a conversation with the potential client. If that leads to an assignment for at least one freelance consultant or interim expert, you share in the project margin.

Specifically, you receive 15 percent of our project margin – for as long as our freelance consultant or interim expert is deployed with that client. A referral therefore becomes an ongoing share rather than a one-off bonus. Details and how to get in touch are on the referral program page.

Additional income without delivery effort of your own. The share continues alongside your day-to-day business for as long as the referred assignment runs with the client – income that is not tied to your own utilisation.

The substantive effect matters just as much: you connect a company from your network with vetted experts instead of leaving it to an open search. The precondition is that an assignment actually comes about. The applicable terms and the process are set out on the referral program page.

Yes, pointers to suitable experts are welcome. The network is curated and closed, which makes a personal assessment from within your professional circle valuable to us – particularly for profiles that are rare on the market.

One clarification: the margin share described in the referral program relates to referring companies, not individuals. Anyone who wants to join goes the same route you did – registration and vetting via For Consultants. Get in touch if you would like to introduce someone specifically.

In an expert team you do not work alone but alongside several specialists on an initiative that a single role cannot cover – for example market entry, scaling, post-merger integration or complex transformation programmes.

The team is assembled for the specific need, and roles are defined up front: who owns which workstream, where the interfaces sit, who leads towards the client. For you this has two effects – you take on larger initiatives than you could accept alone, and you work with colleagues from the network, which can lead to follow-on projects.

Your contacts are the talent managers: they take the briefings from client companies, run the matching and support you from the first request through the client conversations to the assignment. Their personal assessment is a fixed part of quality assurance in the network.

For topics during a running project – extension, changed scope, terms or difficulties with the client – the same route applies: get in touch early rather than sitting it out. consultingheads has been in the market since 2016 and has placed more than 3,000 projects, so the typical friction points are well known. Entry point and contact details are on For Consultants.

consultingheads is a curated expert network that connects companies with independent consultants, freelance experts, interim managers and expert teams for specific projects. It is operated by consultingheads GmbH, Borsigstr. 1, 51381 Leverkusen, Germany; the managing director is Olaf Melsbach.

The promise behind it: the expert network when results matter. You outline your situation, a talent manager translates it into a requirement profile and presents hand-picked candidates within 24 to 36 hours. Our story and team are described on about us; the breadth of disciplines is shown under experts.

consultingheads was founded in 2016 and has since staffed more than 3,000 projects successfully. What began as a community for consulting talent has grown into a network that today serves mid-sized companies, corporates, consultancies and private equity firms.

In 2021 consultingheads GmbH was spun off and sold to the current management; Olaf Melsbach has run the company as managing director ever since. The company is registered with the Cologne local court under HRB 127654. The full story is on about us, and a picture of our client base under customers.

The network comprises more than 22,000 vetted experts with an average of over 11 years of project experience. Nobody is admitted automatically: every profile goes through a multi-stage selection process covering technical expertise, demonstrable project track record and soft skills.

Admission is not the end of quality assurance. Feedback from completed assignments feeds continuously into each expert's rating, complemented by the personal judgement of the talent managers, who stand behind every single recommendation. The disciplines covered are listed under experts and industries.

Yes — a large share of the network has worked at leading strategy firms, including McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Bain, Roland Berger, Oliver Wyman and Strategy&. Many chose independence deliberately, in order to work with more focus and more flexibility.

For clients this means expertise at that level is available on a per-project basis: no retainer, no weeks of lead time and none of the structural cost of a large consultancy. It matters most for strategic decisions, transformations and M&A programmes — which is what our independent consultants are there for.

consultingheads staffs projects across the entire DACH region — Germany, Austria and Switzerland — as well as in Belgium and the Netherlands. Assignments run remotely, hybrid or on site, including in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Vienna and Zurich.

The network comprises more than 22,000 vetted experts; more than 3,000 projects have been staffed this way since 2016. Whether an assignment works better remotely or on site is something we settle during the briefing. Start via find a consultinghead or the page for companies.

The network works across industries. Projects are regularly staffed in:

• Industrial & automotive
• Defence & security
• Financial services & private equity
• Healthcare & pharma
• Telecommunications, technology & software
• Retail & consumer goods
• Energy & utilities
• Transport & logistics

What usually decides a placement is not the sector label but whether a candidate has already solved a comparable project situation. That is precisely what talent managers look for during pre-selection. The companies we work with are shown under customers.

consultingheads staffs roles across every core corporate function: strategy and corporate development, digital transformation and IT, finance, controlling and CFO advisory, M&A, operations and supply chain, marketing and sales, and HR and organisational development.

Underneath sits a far more granular structure — from SAP and enterprise systems through data, AI and analytics to restructuring, cybersecurity and ESG. We search by the problem to be solved rather than by job title; the right title follows from that. The full structure is set out under experts and industries.

The difference is structural. A traditional consultancy brings its own team, and you finance its hierarchy, overhead and firm-level margin along with it. consultingheads instead places individual independent experts directly into your project — many of whom spent years inside those very firms.

Three practical effects follow: typically 30 to 60 % lower cost, short lead times, and a consultant working on your initiative alone rather than juggling several engagements. For strategic questions that means our independent consultants; for leadership gaps, our interim managers.

Recruitment and executive search fill permanent positions: a search process that usually runs for months and ends in an open-ended employment contract. consultingheads fills projects — the expert joins for a defined period with a clear mandate and a defined outcome, and first profiles arrive within 24 to 36 hours.

Risk is distributed differently too. Freelance assignments can be ended at short notice and capacity can be scaled up or down. If someone proves themselves, a permanent hire afterwards remains possible and we support that transition. See freelance experts for an overview.

Open platforms are marketplaces: you post a brief, any number of candidates apply, and quality control stays entirely with you. At consultingheads the network is closed — every profile has been vetted in person, and pre-selection is done by a talent manager who knows your project from the briefing.

Instead of a long applicant list you receive a short set of reasoned recommendations. That saves internal screening effort and reduces the risk of a bad hire, which almost always costs more than any difference in day rate. See find a consultinghead for the process.

Because on project-critical roles it is not the number of options that decides the outcome, but how reliable the recommendation is. An algorithm spots keywords in a CV. It does not tell you whether someone will hold up in a tense restructuring or fit a conservative leadership team.

consultingheads therefore assesses along three dimensions: technical fit, cultural fit and situational fit — meaning experience with a comparable project situation. Nothing is proposed that a talent manager would not personally vouch for, complemented by feedback from more than 3,000 completed projects. More on that thinking: about us.

Your talent manager is your permanent interface into the network. They run the briefing — usually 20 to 30 minutes — translate your situation into a requirement profile, search the network, approach candidates personally, and put forward only profiles they can stand behind themselves.

They stay available during the assignment too: for course corrections, contract questions or extending a team. If something does not go as expected, account management works through the cause with you and sources an alternative profile quickly. Start the briefing via the page for companies.

In most cases yes — because an in-house pool creates ongoing work that rarely makes it into the business case: sourcing, vetting, contract administration, compliance checks and maintaining relationships with consultants you may need once a year.

consultingheads absorbs that work and gives you access to an already vetted base of more than 22,000 experts. You scale immediately, reach a depth of specialisation few internal pools can match, and still have one named point of contact. For larger initiatives, expert teams can be assembled from the same network.

It depends on what needs solving. For a strategic decision, a transformation or an M&A programme, project-based advice from independent consultants is the right route. If what is missing is a clearly bounded skill or simply capacity, freelance experts are the better fit.

When someone has to take line responsibility and lead teams — during a vacancy, a crisis or a restructuring — that calls for interim managers. For complex initiatives consultingheads also assembles teams of several specialists. Which variant works best is settled in the briefing.

Project information is used strictly for its purpose — searching, pre-selecting and staffing. Company details, requirement profiles and the background of an assignment are treated as confidential, internally and towards third parties.

Towards candidates the principle is data minimisation: initially we share only what is needed for a sound assessment of the project, with sensitive detail following once discussions become concrete and confidentiality is contractually secured. What else consultingheads processes is set out in the privacy policy; the controller is consultingheads GmbH as named in the imprint.

Yes. Every expert we place signs an NDA before the project starts, governing the protection of sensitive company data. Confidentiality is therefore settled before anyone sees a system, a set of figures or a strategy paper.

Additional requirements are welcome: many clients have experts sign their own NDA or add project-specific clauses to the consulting contract. Raise such points during the briefing — they can be resolved before profiles are delivered rather than shortly before kick-off. The contractual framework is described in our general terms and conditions. How personal data is processed is set out in the privacy policy.

Yes. consultingheads processes personal data in accordance with the GDPR and the data protection rules applicable in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This covers client contacts as well as the profiles of the experts in the network.

Which categories of data are processed for which purpose and on which legal basis, how long they are retained, and which rights data subjects have — access, rectification, erasure, objection — is described in detail in the privacy policy. Requests can be sent to the Leverkusen address given in the imprint.

Consultant profiles are maintained within the network and shared with clients only when there is a reason to — that is, when a specific project matches professionally. There is no open profile database that third parties can browse; the network is closed.

Before any profile is shared, the talent manager checks with the individual, so nobody is proposed to a company without their agreement. Details on processing, retention periods and data subject rights are set out in the privacy policy. How consultants join the network is explained for consultants.

Projects are never advertised publicly. There is no open job board where your initiative, your question or your budget would be visible to anyone — individual profiles from the closed network are approached directly instead.

For particularly sensitive assignments, such as those around a transaction or a restructuring, it can be agreed that the client is not named at first and the context is only disclosed during the candidate conversation. Potential conflicts of interest on the candidate side can be raised in the same way. Discuss this in the briefing via find a consultinghead.

consultingheads reviews freelance engagements using the FLAC tool developed by the law firm Taylor Wessing. It systematically assesses how an engagement is set up against indicators of bogus self-employment, documents the result in a traceable way and thereby prepares for audits by the German pension insurance authority.

Where a contract for work or services does not carry the intended setup, the assignment can run through approved temporary employment partners. None of this replaces individual legal advice, but it moves the question from gut feeling to documented evidence. Background and typical pitfalls: bogus self-employment.

The controller is consultingheads GmbH, Borsigstr. 1, 51381 Leverkusen, Germany, represented by managing director Olaf Melsbach. The company is registered with the Cologne local court under HRB 127654; the VAT identification number is DE341356662.

All mandatory provider and representation details are published in the imprint, and the complete information on data processing in the privacy policy — including purposes, legal bases and the service providers involved. Requests for access, rectification or erasure can be sent to the contact details given there and are handled within the statutory deadlines. For questions about a live assignment, your talent manager is the fastest route, as they know the case and route it internally.

The quickest route is the enquiry form on find a consultinghead. An email to info@consultingheads.com, a phone call or a meeting booked directly with one of our contacts works just as well.

A few details are enough to start: the task, the intended start date, the approximate scope and where the work takes place. The talent manager clarifies everything else in the briefing. A finished specification document is explicitly not required — the profile often sharpens during the conversation itself. For an overview of the approach, see the page for companies.

A briefing follows, usually lasting 20 to 30 minutes. In it the talent manager captures the task, the constraints, the team culture and the criteria for success — including the things that never appear in a requirement profile.

From there the process runs in clear steps:

• search and pre-selection within the network
• hand-picked profiles within 24 to 36 hours
• interviews with the candidates you choose
• contracting handled by consultingheads, then project start

Around 95 % of enquiries result in a placement this way. You can start via find a consultinghead.

You work with one named talent manager who accompanies you from the briefing through to the end of the project — no rotating ticket queue, no anonymous hotline. They know your initiative, the history behind the staffing decision and the proposed candidates from personal conversations.

During the assignment, account management takes over aftercare: questions about the collaboration, extensions, additional roles, or corrections if something is not working. Who does what in the team is shown on about us; company contact details are in the imprint.

consultingheads handles the contracting. The standard case is a contract for work or services with the independent expert; where closer integration into internal structures is required, the assignment runs through approved temporary employment partners, and leadership mandates use an interim management contract.

Invoicing covers only the work actually accepted, based on the agreed daily or hourly rate: no project lump sums, no hidden mark-ups. For recurring collaboration the contractual basis can be set up once — discuss this with your contact. See the general terms and conditions and bogus self-employment.

The briefing can usually be scheduled at short notice, and first profiles arrive within 24 to 36 hours of that conversation. Urgent requests — a vacancy that appeared overnight, a project that has to start without delay — can be served at the same pace.

That speed is possible because more than 22,000 vetted profiles already sit in the network, so the search never starts from zero. If time is critical, say so directly in your enquiry via find a consultinghead or the page for companies.

From a few weeks to well over a year. The range runs from focused short assignments — a strategy workshop, a quick assessment, a due diligence — through to multi-month mandates such as an interim leadership role, a transformation or a post-merger integration.

What matters is less the duration than whether there is a clearly nameable responsibility. Once the task is outlined, the route works even for short engagements, and duration and scope can be adjusted as the project develops. For longer leadership mandates see interim managers; for broad initiatives, expert teams.

Yes. Our client base includes corporates and international private equity firms alongside mid-sized companies that bring in an expert for one specific challenge — an ERP implementation, a succession plan, a market entry analysis.

The cost advantage of typically 30 to 60 % weighs heaviest there: instead of a permanent hire without sustained workload, or a consultancy mandate with a high entry price, you buy only the expertise you actually need. Tailored information is available for mid-sized companies, for private equity and for corporates.