Your First Sales Hire in Germany Decides Your European Future. I've Done It Five Times.
Most US tech vendors entering DACH lose their first 12 months to the wrong first hire. Between 1984 and 2007 I personally launched the European sales presence of five US tech vendors — Legato, Brocade, Veritas, EqualLogic, and LakeView Technology — as the first or second person on the ground. I carried the bag, hit 200% of quota at Legato in Q3 1998, and won Brocade's 2001 EMEA Top Revenue award. Today, as the founder of Nordh Executive Search, I make that first hire for you. 97% of my placements stay 12 months or longer. Most retained searches deliver a signed offer within 14 to 45 days.
What "First Hire" Actually Looks Like by Stage
Seed / Series A — Hot Category
What you'll ask for: "a salesperson in Germany." What you actually need: a senior Account Executive with a working channel network and the ability to sell into a category that hasn't fully formed yet. Not a Country Manager — too early. Not an SDR — too junior to land the first 10 customers. You need someone who can carry a bag, close enterprise deals, and survive 18 months of building category awareness in a market where your brand is unknown.
2. Series B — US-Only Revenue Today
What you'll ask for: a Country Manager DACH. What you actually need: a player-coach. Someone who spends 70% of their time selling and 30% of their time building — interviewing the second hire, designing the comp plan, picking the first channel partner. A pure manager too early in DACH means a slow first year and a stalled pipeline. Get the player-coach right and DACH becomes a $5M run rate inside 18 months.
3. Series C — $20M+ ARR, Multiple Regions
What you'll ask for: a "real" GM or VP Sales DACH. What you actually need: a true general manager who can hire an SDR, a Sales Engineer, and two Account Executives in their first 12 months — and who can already produce a 90-day plan in your kickoff interview. At this stage your DACH hire is no longer carrying the bag alone; they're building the team that will hit your year-two revenue target. The wrong profile here costs you a year.
4. Public Company — Opening a DACH Office
What you'll ask for: a Senior VP or Managing Director DACH. What you actually need: someone with an existing DACH business-unit P&L on their CV — not just a list of DACH-based employers. The candidate pool at this stage is small (perhaps 200 people in Germany) and entirely passive. They will not respond to a contingency recruiter. They will respond to a retained search run by someone they already know and trust. That's the value I bring at this stage: the warm introduction.
5. Post-Acquisition — Integrating a DACH Team
What you'll ask for: "we already have a team, we just need a new leader." What you actually need: someone fluent in M&A-period hiring and post-acquisition GTM integration. Five of my own former employers were acquired during my operating career, so I know how a DACH team behaves in the 12 months after a deal closes — who stays, who leaves, who can be retained with the right comp redesign, and who's already mentally gone. This is a specialist scenario; let's discuss it on a call.
Why US Tech Vendors Come to Me for the First Hire
A first hire in DACH isn't a placement — it's a market-entry decision. Get it wrong and you lose 9 to 18 months. Get it right and DACH becomes your second-largest region within 24 months. I've watched both outcomes from the inside, both as the operator making the hire and as the headhunter delivering the candidate. The firms I work with retain me because I've actually done this — five times — not because I read about it on LinkedIn.
By partnering with me, you gain access to:
Operator Experience: 25+ years carrying quota in enterprise IT sales. I read CVs the way a hiring manager does — because I was one.
Retained Search With a Fixed Timeline: Qualified shortlist in 5–10 days. Signed offer in 14–45 days. Every placement carries a 12-month replacement guarantee.
DACH and Nordics Network: 18 years of relationships across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. No job boards. No LinkedIn spam. Direct outreach to people who don't answer contingency recruiters.
If you're a US tech vendor entering DACH — or a European vendor scaling beyond your home region — let's talk. I'll tell you in the first 30 minutes whether I'm the right fit for your specific stage, and which profile you actually need.
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