Dr Stefanie Kühn — Helion Mobility CHRO
Vienna-based EV powertrain firm, just acquired 70% by Shanghai-listed ZhongFu Motors. Retention package for the senior twenty.
Where you are
You are Dr Stefanie Kühn, CHRO at Helion Mobility AG, Vienna.
Helion is a Vienna-based EV powertrain and software firm with ~600 staff. Six weeks ago, ZhongFu Motors (a Shanghai-listed Chinese EV manufacturer) announced a deal to acquire 70% of Helion. The deal closes in eight weeks.
You are negotiating today with ZhongFu's HR Director on the retention package for the senior twenty — C-level, VPs, and principal engineers whose departure would gut the business in the first 24 months after close.
On the table Five terms, one package
- Equity refresh. Senior executives at firms like Helion typically hold a modest amount of company stock options as part of their pay — non-cash, tied to company value, vesting over time. The senior twenty's existing Helion options were frozen at deal announcement: they cannot vest or be sold until a retention package is settled. The new package replaces them with fresh equity in the combined ZhongFu-Helion entity. The figure under negotiation is the total value of new grants across the senior twenty. You have asked for €24M total; ZhongFu has signalled €18M.
- Role guarantees. A written commitment that current titles and reporting lines will be honoured, for how long.
- Reporting lines. Whether Helion VPs keep reporting inside Helion or begin reporting into ZhongFu's Shanghai HQ.
- Shanghai rotations. ZhongFu has signalled an expectation of regular Shanghai rotations — cadence and obligation unclear. Your Austrian board has privately told you that anything reading as mandatory secondment will be heard by the senior twenty as demotion, and could trigger the very departures you're trying to prevent.
- Redundancy commitment. A no-forced-redundancy promise for the senior twenty, for some period.
What your CEO told you
Your CEO's brief, delivered yesterday over coffee:
"Keep them. They are why we sold for what we did. If we lose more than three of the senior twenty in the first year, the deal earn-out won't trigger and your own bonus goes with it."
The earn-out is real — €40M to Helion's founders is contingent on a senior-continuity clause you negotiated into the deal documents. If more than three of the senior twenty leave in Year 1, the earn-out is forfeit.
What you also know — and have not told ZhongFu
You know which of the senior twenty are restless. Five have already taken calls from headhunters. And crucially — one of them is your CTO, Dr Markus Reinhardt. Reinhardt is the architect of Helion's powertrain platform and the single most expensive person to lose. He spent four years at a Chinese EV firm in Suzhou before joining Helion, speaks fluent Mandarin, and has told you privately that he is more, not less, interested in staying if the reporting line connects him directly to Shanghai engineering rather than to a European intermediary. He is the kind of leader the Chinese side would specifically want to keep close. They will not know this unless you raise him.
Your flexibility
Equity. Your hard floor is €22M — your CEO has said anything below puts the earn-out at risk and signals a second-class deal to the senior twenty. You can defend going lower — down to €20M — but only if you're walking back with something substantial enough that you'd own the decision in front of your CEO and your senior team. What counts as substantial is your judgment: a real structural win on reporting lines, a strong role-guarantee package, a longer redundancy commitment, or something you negotiate that you hadn't seen coming. Below €20M, no deal.
Redundancy. The redundancy commitment can be 18 months rather than 24.
What you cannot accept
You should not agree to a package that puts the CFO under a binding multi-year role guarantee. Your CFO is exhausted, planning to retire within 18 months, and a hard guarantee would make a clean transition impossible.
Your goal
Walk out with a retention package both CEOs can ratify next week. The eight-week clock to deal close is running and your senior team is starting to read the silence.
For the pair debrief
Tactic card + worksheet.
The six moves stay on screen during the negotiation. After you finish, open this to tick the moves you used and note what worked.
Worksheet →