Jochen Gutbrod has been a Partner and the Executive Chairman at b2venture since 2014 and is part of the b2venture Fund Team. He has a long and storied career across banking, finance, media, and venture investing with degrees from University of St. Gallen, the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. from Fribourg University.

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He started his career in 1992 by joining Schroder Investment Management in London as an analyst, becoming fund manager and later Head of Continental European Equity Research. There, he was one of the world's first investors in Central and Eastern European equity markets, with two of his equity funds in the region becoming some of the most successful funds in Europe at the time.

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He developed a passion for new markets and under-researched companies and was involved in over 100 Initial Public Offerings (IPO) on the investment side.

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“Things like financial models and hard facts are important for any analysis, but many investment decisions aren’t based on facts. I am convinced that gut feeling and, of course, luck play a crucial role in many successful investments.”

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At the end of 1996, he left the investment side to equity sales at the private banking group Lombard Odier in Geneva, becoming Head of Swiss Equity Research. In this role he accompanied capital market transactions and published reports on major IPOs such as Swisscom and Geberit.

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In 2001, he was voted the second best analyst in Switzerland by the magazine Bilanz by predicting the bursting of the technology bubble in the wake of 9/11. He later co-founded two companies in the field of data and outsourcing for banks and began advising other companies with financial challenges. 

 His consultancy mandates included the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, where Jochen was involved in a successful restructuring and subsequently appointed Group CFO in 2003. He served as Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board from 2007 to 2010 and was responsible for Holtbrinck’s publishing activities including Handelsblatt, Germany’s leading business daily. 

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“I found the digital transformation of traditional media to be extremely challenging - there was little willingness across the organization to face up to the digital challenge.” 

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He therefore considers it a stroke of luck he was given responsibility for Holtzbrinck's digital division, a totally separate entity, which led to the establishment of Holtzbrinck Digital, including Holtzbrinck Ventures and Holtzbrinck eLab, and led to many successful startup investments, such as Parship, Zalando, Bol.com, MyHammer, Searchmetrics, and MeineStadt.

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“Successful investments in venture capital come at a price: many millions of euros of mistakes and lessons-learned.”

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In 2010 with Gerhard von Raffay he co-founded Raffay & Cie. and RI Digital Ventures, investing in companies such as Blacklane, Raisin, Sumup, Westwing, Azimo, Outfittery, MeinAuto, Debitos and others. After a very successful collaboration with b2venture, Jochen merged his start-up activities in 2014 with the firm, laying the groundwork for the first joint fund.