Rolf Christof Dienst

Rolf Christof Dienst, BVK Chairman and founder of one of the leading pan-European venture capital firms, Wellington Partnersspoke during his presentation on the topic of "Lean and mean by locusts".

Rolf Christof Dienst (61) is a founding general partner of Wellington Partners in Munich. Mr. Rolf Christof Dienst was admitted to the bar in 1974 after completing his legal training at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. In 1968, Mr. Dienst co-founded the Matuschka Group, which he led as President until he sold his shares in 1990. Afterwards he was head of the Corporate Finance and Venture Capital department with 150 employees and 10 offices in Europe and North America. Since 1978, Mr. Dienst has been active in venture capital in cooperation with TA Associa-tes in Boston. In 1984 he co-founded TVM Techno Venture Management, Munich / Boston, a cooperation between Matuschka, TA Associates and Siemens. In 1991 Rolf Dienst founded the venture capital firm Wellington Partners, Munich. Today, the group manages € 800 million in venture capital for institutional and private investors with 10 partners and 18 other employees. Since 1991, Wellington has financed over 110 companies in the technology and life science sectors and has had 30 successful exits, including 9 IPOs. He is particularly committed to the LMU Entrepreneurship Center at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. He is an honorary senator of this university. He is also Chairman of the Board of BVK, the German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, and on the Advisory Board of High Tech Gründerfonds, the German government's €270 million start-up initiative. Rolf Christof Dienst is married and has five children.

Rolf Christof Dienst, Chairman of the German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVK), sees private equity investments as a pioneer of lean management in Germany: "Private equity promotes growth".

In his presentation at the 15th Munich Management Colloquium, Mr. Rolf Christof Dienst will explain the impact of private equity (PE) on the German economy. He is convinced that PE financing makes a decisive contribution to focusing companies and thus to generating additional sales and earnings potential through lean management, and that management and owners pursue the same interest in our investments: increasing the value of the company. To justify this, he points to the strong performance-related nature of management remuneration and the simple corporate governance, as in PE investments the investors speak with one voice and the management does not have to satisfy a wide range of interests vis-à-vis the supervisory bodies. His conclusion: private equity promotes growth as it makes companies more competitive. In view of these advantages, the experienced entrepreneur Dienst denounces the irrational locust discussion and points to the facts: "Private equity companies already employ around one million people in their holdings in Germany and in many cases are increasing their workforce. These companies already generate around seven percent of Germany's gross domestic product and this proportion is increasing."

Status: Beginning of 2008