NOW HIRING · FULL-TIME · COLOGNE · 2 SEATS

Executive Consultant (Office of the CEO) (m/f/d)

The better founder job: real problems, real data, real decisions, without chasing funding or first customers. Every day next to our co-CEO.

● Cologne, five days a week in the office ● Full-time ● Start: as soon as you can

Customers, products, production and data already exist here. The missing piece: people who turn open questions into decisions, one after the other.

About the role

Our co-founder and co-CEO Philipp Muehlbauer listed everything that lands on his desk: far too much for one person. So he is opening two seats next to him. You work on what matters most to the group right now, from a pricing test to an acquisition.

In 2004 our founders flew to the Canton Fair in China. No plan B, no investors. Today The Customization Group is a global leader in mass customization and print-on-demand e-commerce: up to 2.5 million personalized products a day, made in Germany, Poland, the USA and Latvia, sold B2C, B2B and B2B2C through 20+ own shops and 1,000+ partner stores. 750+ people, 40+ nationalities.

In a nutshell: Take the CEO's open questions, get the data, test, decide and see it through. Then the next one.

At a glance

Location: Cologne, five days a week in the office
Team: Office of the CEO · with Philipp Muehlbauer, co-CEO
Scope: Strategy · data · experiments · transformation · investments & M&A
Experience: Fresh from university, or from consulting, M&A, PE or a scale-up
Language: English. German is not required
Start: As soon as you can

The work

What you'll do

→ Close open questions. Take an opportunity or challenge from the CEO's desk, size it and drive it to a decision. Then the next one.
→ Go to the data yourself. Shops, marketing, production, finance. Where access is missing, you build it.
→ Test before scaling. Experiments in pricing, assortment, marketing or operations. You read the results and decide the next step with the CEO.
→ Prepare investments and M&A. Screen targets, build the case, run the numbers.
→ Carry change into the business. With the teams who own the result, until it shows in their numbers.
→ Build with AI. Analyses, research and prototypes with the CEO's AI setup, which you improve as you go.

What you bring

Must have

→ An analytical degree and first experience in strategy consulting, M&A, private equity or a scale-up, or internships of that kind.
→ You build and check your own numbers.
→ AI is your daily tool, and you can show us something you built with it.
→ You turn analysis into a decision, on one page rather than in a deck.
→ Fluent English, our working language.

Nice to have

→ E-commerce sense: unit economics, conversion, marketplaces.
→ Online or performance marketing experience.
→ SQL or Python.

Why this role, now

Scope

A founder's agenda, minus the fundraising

Pricing, markets, operations, acquisitions: the whole group is your scope, not one function.

B2C · B2B · B2B2C

An AI setup that already runs

The CEO has spent six months sharpening it. You use it from day one and make it better.

Agents · analysis · prototypes

Decisions

Decisions, not decks

You sit next to the person who decides. You prepare the calls and see them through.

Test · transform · invest · acquire

Is this you?

Sounds like you?

→ You pick up problems unasked and stay until they're solved.
→ You'd rather check the data than win the argument.
→ You've thought about founding a company, and you want the problems more than the paperwork.
→ You get into a new topic fast: pricing on Monday, production on Thursday.

Probably not a fit if…

→ you want a predictable rhythm. The pace follows the CEO's agenda, and some weeks are intense.
→ you want to lead a team soon. This role is about learning fast.
→ your best output is a polished deck. Here a result counts once it's live.
→ you want to work remotely. The work happens at the CEO's desk.

Compensation & benefits

→ AI tools — whatever you need, paid
→ Free breakfast & lunch — in the office, several times a week
→ Meal allowance — up to €7.50 per working day
→ Urban Sports Club or €50 vouchers — your pick, every month
→ Deutschlandticket — TCG pays one third
→ JobRad — bike leasing after probation

Show us how you think

No cover letter. Send your CV and one page instead.

→ Pick one of our shops or products. Find one opportunity or problem worth solving.
→ Size it. Any data you can find, any AI tool you like.
→ Tell us what you'd test first. And what would make you stop. One page or a two-minute recording. It doesn't need to be polished.

Two seats. Applying takes about 10 minutes, plus your one page.

The Customization Group · Picanova GmbH · Cologne · thecustomizationgroup.com
We welcome applications from every background.

Executive Consultant (inhouse) (m/f/d)