Ralf Nejedl, former leader of B2B business for Deutsche Telekom AG Europe, is AltoPartners Deutschland’s newest partner. Drawing on his vast corporate experience, that encompasses both information technology and commerce across numerous countries, Nejedl will work out of the Darmstadt office from July 1, 2022, specialising in executive search in the technology and telecommunications fields.

Before entering the executive search industry, he was responsible for managing and growing fixed and mobile core business, and for growing new revenue streams in information and communications technology, cloud service and machine to machine Internet of Things business across 10 Deutsche Telekom subsidiaries in Europe. Reflecting on almost 20 years of working in executive roles, he realised that there was one common theme: success depends on having the right people working for you. “So this matchmaking of finding the right people, and putting them in the right job, and making them successful in the job, makes all the difference in your results.”

He says that there are opportunities to make mistakes when hiring. “You have to really dive deep and understand what’s there.” One axis he uses to make hiring decisions is that of skills – especially an understanding of high-tech telecoms. But having the right attitude (the other axis) is equally important, he says. “You have to be qualified to do the job. But if you have two candidates, one stronger in skills but you have big question marks on personality, I would opt for the candidate with the right attitude.”

Nejedl thinks the phrase “war on talent” needs to be viewed from another perspective, namely war of talents. “Rather we should focus on efforts that companies have to make to attract the best talent possible for them. This is a great challenge. Having been on the buying side of executive search, I think helps me to understand the pain when it comes to very simple stuff, like speed of hiring and being able to explain to candidates what the job is all about - having an honest and open conversation about that.”

Nejedl is looking forward to the entrepreneurship challenge of his new role. “You’re changing from a supertanker where if you make a small move nothing happens, to a go-kart – no suspension, no brakes but a lot of fun. If you look at the people across the AltoPartners family, they are great entrepreneurs. They take their jobs seriously. You cannot hide behind any corporate structure… you commit to do something and you deliver against that promise.”