09/18/2009

Slings and Arrows

Half of Germany's Top Managers Given the Boot

It's tough at the top and a new study shows just how precarious it can be in the upper echelons of corporate Germany. Since 2006, one in two board members at companies listed on Germany's blue-chip DAX index have been fired. And once you are out, there is no going back.

It seems attaining the privileged position of member of the board at one at the top listed German companies may be but a fleeting pleasure. A new study has found that over half of all managers who served on company boards of the DAX list of Germany's 30 blue chip companies have lost their positions over the past three and half years.

The vagaries of life at the top of the corporate ladder are laid bare in the study by the management consultancy firm Heidrick & Struggles, the German daily Die Welt reported on Friday.

Of the 192 members of the boards serving in the 30 companies at the beginning of 2006, 98 have since been let go. And once pushed out there was little chance of climbing back up that greasy pole, with only one single board member managing to get a similar position at another DAX listed firm.

However, the report found that the cream of the crop, the chairs of the board, were far more likely to hold on to their plush leather seats in the boardroom. Of the 30 current chairpersons, 16 were already in their positions back at the start of 2006.

smd -- with wire reports

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