History

A bicycle and a revolutionary idea: two surprising assets that stand at the beginning of Kienbaum’s history on October 15th, 1945. Having only recently returned from military service, the graduate engineer Gerhard Kienbaum founded an office for “Technical Advice, Translations and Representation Services” in Gummersbach, helping local companies revive their business after the destructions of the war. The idea of management consulting was born.

The motto of his company, “Solve other people’s problems and turn problems into opportunities”, led him to the design of new manufacturing and logistics processes for companies in many different lines of business throughout the 1950s. Crossing the region on his bicycle, he visited the local business and advised them on all matters of structural and procedural improvements.

Within a period of ten years, the constant expansion of the enterprise into a group of companies specializing in planning, consultancy and management services in all areas of the economy, transport and agriculture and integrated regional development gave Kienbaum a prominent place in German business life. With the insider know-how gained by the consultant team, more and more companies turned to Kienbaum to enquire about potential candidates for vacancies in times of labour shortages.

These informal enquiries soon developed into the business line of executive search services, until the “Kienbaum Personalberatung”, today’s Kienbaum Executive Consultants GmbH, was eventually founded in 1978. The idea of integrated consultancy services was born. In addition to this integrated vision, the focus on the human factor has remained the central leitmotif in the history of Kienbaum.

By 1957, Kienbaum und Partner had established offices in Hamburg, Frankfurt/Main, and Düsseldorf, with a total of 90 members of staff. One year later, Vienna became the location of choice for the first international office of Kienbaum. The first Kienbaum studies, on the question of “transport infrastructure”, were published in 1962. At the same time, the Entwicklungsberatung mbH was founded.

From 1962 to 1967, Gerhard Kienbaum served as Minister for the Economy, SMBs and Transport in NRW. 1964 saw the foundation of the Kienbaum International Service GmbH. In the mid-1960s, Kienbaum employed a total workforce of 150 employees and soon added another office in Munich. Through its business partnerships, Kienbaum established ties with consultancies in many western European countries. These business contacts reached from Scandinavia to Italy, Greece, and Spain.

In 1971, Kienbaum established the Kienbaum Consultores Ltda in Brazil. The Kienbaum Mittelstandsberatung mbH was founded in 1976. Jochen Kienbaum, the son of Gerhard Kienbaum, took over the Berlin office in 1977, founding the Kienbaum Berlin GmbH in December of the same year. In 1978, human resources consulting was added to its management consultancy services in the shape of the Kienbaum Entwicklungs Consult GmbH, the Kienbaum Behördenberatung GmbH and the Kienbaum Personalberatung GmbH. Jochen Kienbaum was named as acting managing director. The chairmanship of Kienbaum und Partner was finally transferred from Gerhard Kienbaum to his son in 1985.

The first HR development concepts were designed in 1985. In 1989, Gerhard Kienbaum established the Kienbaum Development Services GmbH. In 1991, Kienbaum Management Consultants merged with the Kienbaum Personalberatung GmbH. The “Gerhard und Lore Kienbaum Stiftung” was founded in 1994. Three years later, the Kienbaum Personalberatung was re-imagined as Kienbaum Executive Consultants and the Kienbaum Unternehmensberatung as Kienbaum Management Consultants.

New offices were added in Paris, Prague, and Singapore. In 1998, Kienbaum und Partner became Kienbaum Consultants International in a time that also saw Jochen Kienbaum’s nomination as the president of the BDU. Kienbaum also began its operations in offices in Warsaw, Budapest, and Zurich.

In 2000, Kienbaum won the top spot in the BDU ranking of the leading German HR consultancies. Top-level consultancy work was transferred into a separate division and the Japanese Corporate Business division is launched. In 2005, the management consultancy opened a new office in Cologne’s Kap am Südkai. Two years later, Kienbaum opened its first Japanese office. In 2008, Kienbaum established new offices in Freiburg and London, in 2009 in Bucharest and in 2010 in Stockholm and Helsinki. In 2011, Kienbaum continues to expand its international business and enlarges its French office. Furthermore a new Business Technology Management team has come on board. Kienbaum is again ranked as market leader for Executive Search consultancy.