zeb Consulting

About Us

zeb is one of the leading strategy, management, and IT consultancies in Europe specifically focused on the financial sector. We advise banks, insurers, and other specialists such as Fintechs. Whether it involves challenges related to the various functions – Finance & Risk, Operations & IT – or the different customer groups – Retail Banking, Private Banking, and Corporate Banking.

zeb was founded in 1992 by Bernd Rolfes and Henner Schierenbeck, two German professors at the University of Münster, who wrote THE standard work for banking finance students.

In just three decades, we have grown into one of the largest players of our kind. To illustrate, in 2023, we worked with more than 1,000 consultants and employees, across 15 offices in 11 countries, on more than 2,200 projects. We also have a rapidly growing, local presence in the Netherlands.

We are partners for change
zeb likes to position itself as ‘a partner for change’. We challenge our clients to make forward-looking decisions. We help them develop visions and strategies and implement them.
Over the years, we have gained extensive experience in performing market analyses – particularly for the DACH region – commercial due diligences, integrations, as well as regulatory implementations. We are not afraid to take on large-scale IT projects and will develop technical solutions in-house if necessary.

Specifically focused on the financial sector
At zeb, all of our consultants have one thing in common: a specific focus on the financial sector. We are proud to count many European and nationally supervised banks among our clients. In addition, we serve many insurers and other specialists such as FinTechs. Within the financial sector, we cover the entire spectrum. Whether it involves the different functions or customer groups.
Concrete themes we are working on include – in addition to the general, sector-wide initiatives for sustainability reporting (CSRD) and cybersecurity (DORA) – the development of commercial strategies for Corporate Banking teams and the modelling of climate-related stress tests.

Data- and result-driven approach
Finally, our academic roots continue to shape our approach today. We back up our analyses with a substantial amount of data. Thanks to our in-depth knowledge of the financial sector, we are uniquely positioned to oversee the bigger picture and offer our clients pragmatic solutions. Through our motto ‘stay and grow’, we manage to retain our consultants for a relatively long time. They bring a lot of experience on projects, along with strong social skills and the necessary creativity.

What are our sustainable initiatives?

Zeb takes its Corporate Social Responsibility obligations very seriously. In our Code of Conduct, we have outlined the principles of sustainable behavior that are mandatory for all our employees. It serves as the foundation for the four action fields of our CSR program including market, employees, society, and environment. In each field, we have set concrete goals and actions that we measure, review, develop further, and include in our annual sustainability report.

Our management team is fully committed to the vision of sustainable development for the 21st century. Our consultants are intended to be “partners for sustainable change” for their clients and understand the importance of sustainable development in today’s business landscape. By integrating ESG criteria into our consulting services, we not only help our clients in adhering to regulations but also in achieving their sustainability goals.