Philipp Freise

Philipp Freise has been with KKR since 2001 and serves as co-head of the European private equity business. He is a member of the European investment committees for private equity and growth equity, as well as the European portfolio management committee.

Mr. Freise has played a key role in a number of significant investments, including FGS Global, OHB, Datagroup, Superstruct, Axel Springer, GetYourGuide, Leonine, and Mediawan. In addition, he played a central role in building the European investment team for technology, media, and telecommunications. The transactions he has led include ProSiebenSat.1 and Exact, as well as major German portfolio companies such as Demag and MTU Aero Engines.

Mr. Freise has extensive experience as a supervisory board member and currently serves on the supervisory boards of Ifm, FGS Global, Mediawan, OHB, Stepstone, and Superstruct Entertainment.

Mr. Freise began his professional career in 1996 at McKinsey & Company in Vienna, Frankfurt, and New York. He subsequently founded Venturepark, Europe’s first pan-European startup incubator, which he led until 2001.

Mr. Freise studied business administration at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management and at the University of Texas at Austin (McCombs School of Business) and was a scholarship recipient of the German National Academic Foundation.

In 2009, Mr. Freise was named a Young Global Leader, and in 2014 he was appointed to the World Economic Forum’s Agenda Council on the Future of Financing and Capital. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden Foundation and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Bayreuth Festival (Society of Friends of Bayreuth).