Axel Wieandt (born 19 September 1966) is a German manager. He has been serving as a honorary professor at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management since 2004.
Early life and education
Axel Wieandt is the son of Paul Wieandt, former CEO of several German banks. Axel Wieandt is married and father of two children.
In 1986 he started his academic studies at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (WHU), where he graduated with a degree in Business Administration (“Diplom Kaufmann”). Between 1988 and 1990 he was a scholar of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes. In 1992, he earned an MBA degree at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University (Illinois), supported by a DAAD scholarship. In 1993 he earned a doctorate degree in Business Administration (“Dr. rer. pol.”) at the WHU with Professor Horst Albach as his thesis advisor.
Career
Wieandt started his career in 1993 with McKinsey & Company in Düsseldorf and Boston. Between 1997 and 1998 he worked for Morgan Stanley in London in the Mergers & Acquisitions and Restructuring Department.
Deutsche Bank
In 1998, he left Morgan Stanley to join Deutsche Bank. In 2000 Wieandt became the youngest divisional head in Deutsche Bank's Corporate Center. As Head of Corporate Development, Wieandt and his team were in charge of developing Deutsche Bank's Group strategy as well as executing strategic transactions. From 2003 on, he was also appointed Global Head of Corporate Investments, with P&L responsibility for the bank's entire investment portfolio with a total volume of several billion EUR.
Hypo Real Estate
In October 2008, former German Federal Minister of Finance Peer Steinbrück announced that the Hypo Real Estate's entire board of directors would be replaced. At the time, the bank was experiencing severe financial difficulties as a result of the financial crisis. A consortium of German financial service providers proposed that Axel Wieandt should serve as HRE's chief executive officer. Thereafter, Wieandt was appointed chief executive officer and chairman of the management board of HRE. On March 25, 2010, he offered his resignation as chief executive officer to the supervisory board of HRE. The supervisory board accepted and released him from his duties. According to a HRE press release, the reasons cited for this were differences in opinion regarding the management of the bank between the CEO and the Financial Market Stabilisation Fund (SoFFin, the governmental entity that owns HRE). German news magazine Der Spiegel confirmed that differences in opinion regarding the bank's management prevailed. According to Der Spiegel journalist Christoph Pauly, Wieandt deemed these differences in opinion an "imposition". According to insiders, Wieandt demanded more entrepreneurial freedom from the government, the sole owner of HRE. Whereas according to Wieandt, the bank's core capital ratio should be kept above ten per cent, the SoFFin's chief executive Hannes Rehm had promised a “gentle handling” of taxpayers’ money and urged for a lower figure. According to German business magazine Manager Magazin, the HRE's supervisory board deemed that, "Wieandt contributed significantly to the bank's stabilisation and realignment". Journalists Eigendorf and Jost write in German daily newspaper Die Welt that "Wieandt did a good job at HRE". They argue that Wieandt was frustrated about an "unnecessarily time-consuming decision-making process", and a "lack of leeway" in paying HRE staff.
Return to Deutsche Bank
On 1 June 2010, Wieandt returned to Deutsche Bank, where he was a Managing Director in the Corporate Center responsible for Integration Management. Eigendorf and Jost write that, in 2010 a BaFin associate unexpectedly objected Axel Wieandt's appointment as the chief executive officer of the BHF Bank. Therefore, Deutsche Bank refrained from officially proposing Axel Wieandt as the BHF Bank's chief executive officer. Eigendorf and Jost argue that the objection was a "retort". BaFin president Jochen Sanio confirmed in a press interview that he had a personal conversion with Wieandt in Bonn, and that there were "no banking supervisory legal reasons for not appoiting Wieandt chief executive officer".
Credit Suisse
On 1 July 2011, Wieandt was appointed managing director of Credit Suisse Deutschland's Investment Banking Department. There, he served as an account executive responsible for financial service provider clients from countries such as Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Norway. In June of 2012, Wieandt resigned from his position at Credit Suisse.