Alumni of the Month February 2017
Universität Liechtenstein Alumni of the month
“off and rolling” Christoph Böckle already proved himself by being a leader in the financial industry during his Masters in Banking and Financial Management. After graduating, he took the fast lane to success by becoming a serial entrepreneur. Dear Christoph, looking back to your time at the University of Liechtenstein doing a Bachelor’s as well as a Master’s programme – how would you describe this part of your biography? I absolutely loved it! I worked part-time during the time of my studies and every week I felt I had learned something really useful for the work I was doing. I was also absolutely amazed by the international atmosphere on campus and throughout the country. What made you study at the University of Liechtenstein in the first place? And why did you choose to do a Master’s in Finance after your Bachelor’s? There were two reasons really: At that time – in 1999 – this program was one of the very few with a focus on Banking and Financial Management. Additionally, I was able to choose between doing the program full- and part-time (which took a bit longer). Therefore, I was able to study and work at the same time, which was perfect for me! How did your career develop after having finished your studies? And how did the programme prepare you for the professional wold? After graduating from the Bachelor’s programme, I took on a job offer in a bank in Innsbruck where I was responsible for the loan division. During that time, I did my Master’s, after which I got the chance to become an investment manager for investors in former Yugoslavia. Everything went really quickly from that point: I became chairman of a German bank which I led for 7 years. Since 2014 I am CEO of affinity venture ag, a company that is specialized in investments in e-com and fin-tech projects.
You are so-called serial entrepreneur, which means you have founded many companies already. Could you please tell us a bit about that? Of course! We are currently working on 15 projects – meaning we are rather “parallel entrepreneurs”. Sometimes, this is very exhausting but unbelievably exciting at the same time. We try to have our enterprises in various stadiums of their life cycle – meaning that one might be at a very early stage, another one in the growth phase and again another one in the exit phase. This practice allows us to steer our cash flow and have regular developments. Since we specialize in the development and selling of firms, we usually don’t hold them for more than 5 years. Has it always been your dream to found your own company? Definitely yes! I always wanted to be an entrepreneur! The first startup I founded was in 2002. Being an entrepreneur means a lot of difficult decisions and challenges – which ones do you think shaped your character most? When I took over the bank in 2008, it was on the brink of ruin. If it had not been for the financial crisis, I guess the BaFin (Banking Supervision) would have had the courage to shut it down. Due to the fact that the overall situation was very fragile at that time, they probably thought it might put too much stress on the banking sector. Based on this grain of luck, I was able to restructure the bank and sell it to a corporation. The most important decision clearly was to take on this challenge – meaning the job – even though it seemed to be not very promising: and I learned that luck often comes with a lot of courage and diligence.
Universität Liechtenstein Alumni of the month
Would you mind giving a few tips to our students who might want to found their own company as well? Having visions and plans is great – but mind to have your accounting and numbers in pat. How do you motivate yourself? And how do you deal with stress? Well, that’s a good one – if I am passionate about what I’m doing, I don’t mind to get up early and work long hours. But there are other days when I tell myself: this needs to be done, so get it done! What characterizes you and how do you make decisions? I think I could be described as being very responsible, meaning I deal with an investor’s money as if it was my own: economical and targeted. At the same time it is very important to me to be able to trust my employees and partners … I don’t think I am very much of a control freak! Do you still see yourself as an entrepreneur in the future or would you like to do something else? Actually, I love what I do at the moment …
personal details Christoph Böckle has been the CEO of affinity ventures ag in Ruggell (Liechtenstein) since 2014. He is also a member of the Board of Quantumrock Research & Trading GmbH (Munich), as well as Chairman of the Board of Satabank plc. (Malta) and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Liechtenstein Life AG (Ruggell). In addition to these activities, he is head of the speedstartstudio, a corporate excubator in Dornbirn. Previously, he was a member of the board of directors of net m privatbank 1891 ag for 7 years, as well as 10 years in various positions in the banking sector. At the University of Applied Sciences in Liechtenstein, he studied business economics with a focus on financial services in the Bachelor degree program. In 2007, he graduated from the University of Liechtenstein with a Master’s degree in Banking & Financial Management. Christoph Böckle is married, has a daughter and lives in Götzis, Austria.
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