In 2019, the headhunting firm Odgers Berndtson studied the boards of the 30 companies in the DAX. Of the chief executives, 80 percent came from inside their own company. Of all board members, 58 percent had spent more than half of their career in the company before their appointment. The trade journal Personalwirtschaft summed it up in its headline: Stallgeruch und Branchen-Know-how zählen immer noch am meisten. The smell of the stable and knowledge of the industry still count most. The pattern differs for women. In 2024, the AllBright Foundation studied the 160 companies in the DAX, MDAX and SDAX. It found that 65 percent of the women newly appointed to their boards had been recruited from outside through headhunters, compared with 42 percent of the men.