Prof Bernd J. HOEFER

Senior Advisor
From 2001 to 2006 Bernd J. HOEFER was the Vice Chairman of the Executive Board, CFO and Chief Innovation Officer of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) which is one of the biggest European Engineering Centres. He served on various boards and committees such as Application Centre for Satellite Navigation (Munich), Centre for Science and Research Management (Speyer), T-Systems Solutions for Research (SfR), European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, Geneva), Commerzbank and others. Prior to this he was Managing Director of one of the most relevant Foundations in Germany which drives and supports higher education, universities and science (e.g. Hertie School of Governance, European School for Management & Technology/esmt) and Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Germany where he served for almost 15 years (WP/StB).   Bernd J. HOEFER is Honorary Professor for Economics, Management and Finance at the University of Applied Sciences Cologne (RFH) and Professor for Innovation Management and Technology Transfer at the University of Applied Sciences Bonn/Rhein-Sieg. He has almost 30 years of experience in business development and international consultancy services in particular in science & technology (TMT, ICT), higher education and in the aerospace industry. He has also worked closely with several governments and investment banks to promote trade, investment and cooperation between developed and developing countries in Europe and the Middle East. He has 25+ years of experience in Corporate Finance both, in the mature stage such as IPO, Privatizations/PPP, Private Equity and turnarounds as well as in seed/early stage activities such as Business Angels, Venture Capital, Start-Ups and Incubator/ Accelerator. Bernd was heavily involved in international restructuring and privatization projects as well as Private Public Partnership (PPP) projects (BOT, BOOT, BOO). He is part of a huge network of senior experts which has a reputation for creativity and flexibility in conjunction with a strong commercial foundation. Most recently he co-founded a DeepTech spin-off from one of the European National Labs which develops and operates digital infrastructure for autonomous and highly automated multimodal mobility applications such as autonomous driving, drones/RPAS etc.   Bernd J. HOEFER holds a Private Pilot Licence (PPL-A, CVFR/JAR-FCL), is Chairman of the German Business Roundtable Bahrain, Member of the Bahrain German Joint Business Council, Goodwill Ambassador of the City of Cologne/Germany, National Co-ordinator of the Moon Village Association for Bahrain and engaged in various social activities such as Rotary Club, Chaine des Rotisseurs and many others.