From a specialized solution to an integrated HR platform. From potential to sustainable growth.

At HR WORKS, succession wasn’t a one-time event—it became a recurring value creation lever. The first milestone came in 2020, when founder Thomas Holzer handed over the CEO role to Markus Schunk, creating the foundation for the company’s transition from a product-focused business to its next stage of growth.

The second transition followed in 2025, when Markus Schunk joined Maguar after successfully leading the company, and Florian Weiß took over as CEO. This second succession demonstrates that HR WORKS has evolved beyond dependence on any single founder or executive and has built an organization capable of managing leadership transitions in a structured and sustainable way.

When Maguar invested, HR WORKS’ success was driven primarily by product quality, word-of-mouth referrals, and a strong position within its niche. At the same time, these strengths also highlighted the company’s limitations: marketing remained underdeveloped, sales lacked a scalable structure, and a dedicated customer success function had yet to be established.

Together with Markus Schunk, Nils Drache, and Frank Reinhardt, we systematically built the company’s commercial capabilities. Marketing investment increased, new acquisition channels were developed, teams expanded, and the sales organization was professionalized. The result was the transformation of a strong product company into a scalable commercial engine, reflected in stronger brand awareness, larger teams, and sustained new customer growth.

One of the most important—yet least visible—value creation levers was refining packaging and pricing. As the platform expanded, HR WORKS needed not only to offer more functionality but also to translate that additional value into a clearer packaging strategy, licensing model, and SaaS pricing structure. The objective wasn’t simply to increase prices—it was to better align product breadth, customer value, and pricing. The outcome was higher average revenue per customer and a more resilient commercial model.

Scaling HR WORKS required more than adding people—it required building a different organization. Under Markus Schunk’s leadership, new executive functions including CMO, CFO, and Customer Success were established, enabling the company to evolve beyond its founder-led structure into a scalable organization.

At the same time, organizational development wasn’t purely top-down. Long-standing employees such as Stephanie Schleunitz and Frank Reinhardt grew alongside the company, taking on greater responsibility and building their own teams. The result was a more professional organization that preserved the entrepreneurial culture that had defined HR WORKS from the beginning.

Alongside strong organic growth, HR WORKS expanded strategically through acquisitions. DriversCheck strengthened the group’s compliance capabilities, Bonrepublic added talent management capabilities, and Vispato further expanded the compliance offering.

These acquisitions weren’t opportunistic additions to revenue—they were carefully aligned with a broader strategic vision: expanding the functional scope of the HR WORKS Group and delivering greater value across the entire HR process landscape. Step by step, a single software company evolved into a broader software group with deeper product capabilities, additional locations, and a significantly expanded solution portfolio.