Early summer 2008. My first business trip to New York. Business Class. Okay, it was an upgrade, but still. I had just made myself comfortable when my seat neighbor, a partner from one of the Big Four, started talking to me. He was flying over for a quick \u00bbRooftop Cappuccino\u00ab and would be flying back in the morning. He almost seemed to brag about his 100-hour workweek and how he always liked to treat himself to these awesome quick hitting trips. How someone could be so proud of working 100 hours a week and boast about such a fact within a 45 second conversation, left me speechless. Crazy!<\/p>\n
Over the course of 15 years as an M&A consultant, there have been several situations where I had to just shake my head at my own industry. Whether it be the \u00bbwin at all costs\u00ab mentality, the life-time consuming face-time culture or the countless empty phrases which are thrown around without reflection. I almost didn\u2019t know if I belonged here anymore. However, my fascination of M&A, with its never boring mixture of psychology, strategy and mathematics did not let go of me. Thanks to several fortunate circumstances, I was allowed the opportunity to co-found Aquin and am proud to be surrounded by not only good but down to earth people.<\/p>\n
Aquin is not a sterile investment bank. We are a M&A manufactory. With the intricate work ethic of an instrument maker servicing customers from around the world. We act with experience, soul and are unconditionally committed to quality.<\/p>\n
By the way: 50 hours per week. Even in the founding years, this was always my personal limit. I admire entrepreneurs who manage to make themselves dispensable. Now that is something to shoot for!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Early summer 2008. My first business trip to New York. Business Class. Okay, it was an upgrade, but still. I had just made myself comfortable when my seat neighbor, a partner from one of the Big Four, started talking to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquin-talk"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n