I was born in Roth near Nuremberg in 1966, so I'm Middle Franconian by birth with Bavarian citizenship.

In 1968 I was 'forcibly relocated' to Cologne, where I stayed until 1985, which is why I am “Köllner by heart”.

During this time, I went through an officer's career in the air force, so I feel like an 'officer and a gentleman'

During this time, I studied economics and organizational sciences at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg and completed an MBA at the Hult International School (Ashridge) in 2001.

I worked in Corporate Finance at Deutsche Bank, was a 'servant of two masters' as an assistant to the Executive Board and then went into large-cap M&A.

I did a management buy-in and brought private equity into the company as CFO and shareholder of SYSGO AG.

Then, on the other side of the table, I set up the German office as Managing Director at Strategic Value Partners.

As a founding partner of H.I.G. Capital's European activities, I was responsible for Europe-wide business development activities from 2008.

I took the Way of St. James, quit my job and trained as a business coach, business mediator and strengths coach.