CCounselors: German and Swiss partnership starts with a new consulting service model

Dusseldorf/Zurich, June 2023 Under the brand name of CCounselors, a team of experienced German and Swiss consultants has established a partnership. The German team comprises Peter Dietlmaier, Matthias Goldbeck, Jürgen Homeyer, Richard Lips and Birgit Rügert. The Swiss partners are Dominique Reber, Victor Schmid and Michael Schoenenberger. They will remain partners of the leading Swiss communication consulting firm Hirzel.Neef.Schmid.Konsulenten. Schmid is one of the three founding partners.

The team is introducing a new kind of communication consultancy in Germany. The special feature: Consulting is provided exclusively by female and male partners, who, at the same time, also bear entrepreneurial responsibility and are shareholders in the consulting firm. Each client is personally and comprehensively supported by one of the partners for the entire duration of the mandate. In accordance with the consulting needs of the clients, the individual complementary fields of expertise existing within the partnership are provided in a bundled form.

All members of the partnership dispose of management experience in internationally active companies, and have been successfully working in communication consulting for decades. In addition, each of the eight partners has long-term experience in the following areas: strategic consulting of companies, boards of directors, supervisory boards and executives, as weil as corporate transformations, litigation and crises communication, reputation management and social media.

Peter Dietlmaier:

"Our team that contributes vast experience in DAX, SMI, S&P 100 companies and family offices stands for personal consulting at eye level. Our shared understanding: For our clients, we look for sustainable solutions that strengthen the reputation of a company, an institution or a person in the long term. Any short-term effective measure, however obvious it may seem, must always be assessed in the context of long-term credibility."

Victor Schmid:

"We have been successfully active with Hirzel.Neef.Schmid.Konsulenten for our clients in Switzerland for mor than 25 years. One essential success factor is that there are no 'juniors' or employed consultants in our firm but only personalities who are all participating entrepreneurially. In my opinion, this makes the decisive difference. And I am glad to bring this successful Swiss approach to the German market with a great team."

Already today, CCounselors is active as a strategic consulting firm for a large number of family-run and listed companies and their bodies, as weil as for associations from a variety of industries. Especially in the area of litigation communication, Düsseldorf­ based CCounselors have been cooperating with renowned lawyers for many years.

Peter Dietlmaier entered the communication sector via active politics in the 1980s. After about 30 years of experience in leading functions in the areas of corporate communications, public affairs and branding in DAX-, SMI-, S&P 100 companies, he founded the strategic communication consulting firm CCounselors in 2012.

Matthias Goldbeck disposes of long-term communications experience with financial service providers and professional services firms. He headed the internal communications department of Commerzbank and was head of communications of Allianz Deutschland. Since 2019, he has been advising companies on issues of reputation and communication management at CCounselors.

Jürgen Homeyer knows the area of tension between companies and media from his own long-term experience. For more than 10 years, Homeyer worked as a journalist - inter alia, for the magazines Wirtschaftswoche and Focus. Afterwards, he was head of communications at Lufthansa, Ergo, Metro and 1. FC Köln. The focus of his activity lies in the area of strategic and crises communication.

Richard Lips was first a journalist after his studies, and had his entry into corporate communications at Bayerische Vereinsbank. Within Allianz, amongst others, he headed financial communications. At Commerzbank, he was head of communications for 15 years and also responsible for brand campaigns and public affairs.

Dominique Reber is an expert for strategic communication- and sustainability­ related topics. He was president of the FIPRA network, the largest global organization of independent and owner-managed public affairs consultancies. After his studies, he was conferred an Executive Master degree in international and European Commercial Law at the University of St. Gallen (HSG).

Birgit Rügert has been providing advice in the areas of brand and corporate communication for more than 20 years. She led numerous multi-market accounts at international agencies, before she joined the management at Kienbaum. In 2018, she founded inspyne communications GmbH with the focus areas Brand & Social Media Strategy as well as Corporate Reputation.

Dr. Victor Schmid is founding partner and Chairman of Hirzel.Neef.Schmid.Konsulenten AG, the leading consulting firm for Strategie Communication and Public Affairs in Switzerland. Before this, he headed global communications in 72 countries for an international group. After his studies, he initially worked as a journalist in Switzerland.

Michael Schoenenberger is an expert for complex communication tasks at the interface of economy, politics and society. He has broad journalistic and entrepreneurial experience. Schoenenberger headed the domestic editorial department of «Neue Zürcher Zeitung» and there, inter alia, he was in charge of the digital transformation.