Founder & Managing Partner, Bernhardt Advisory
Cambridge affiliations
- MBA, Cambridge Judge Business School (1996)
- Member of Wolfson College
Professional history
Dr Jens Bernhardt is Founder & Managing Partner at Bernhardt Advisory, which, since its foundation in 2009, has provided a broad spectrum of financial services to affluent private customers/investors, families and single family offices, as well as to institutional investors. The firm’s primary focus revolves around its top-notch, personally tailored family office services. These services encompass comprehensive consultation, beginning with wealth management, through to capital investments and reporting. Family office clients are increasingly looking beyond standard investments, such as stocks and bonds, toward investments with an entrepreneurial focus. As a consequence, Bernhardt Advisory rounded up its financial services spectrum with an entrepreneurial component, primarily consisting of mergers & acquisitions (direct investments), alternative investments (indirect investments) and other real assets (i.e. art, vintage cars, etc). From its headquarters near Frankfurt and because of its numerous international clients, Bernhardt Advisory is active worldwide. The company is very well-connected in Europe in general and the German-speaking countries in particular.
Before Jens founded Bernhardt Advisory, he was the Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist of Germany’s largest Family Office, Oppenheim Vermögenstreuhand in Cologne (today: Deutsche Oppenheim Family Office). Prior to this, he was the Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of Zurich Financial Services Germany as well as Skandia Insurance Group Germany. After his Cambridge MBA, he worked for five years as a strategy consultant for Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and in his own consulting company in Munich. Jens also used to be a long-term member of the supervisory board of the second-largest listed real estate company in Germany, Deutsche Wohnen.
Society & charity work
In Frankfurt, Jens also serves as an Assistant Professor for Asset Management and Mergers & Acquisitions (BA & MA students) at the FOM University of Applied Sciences and the University of Cooperative Education.
Apart from his business activities, Jens is also active in politics. Since 1989, he is a member of the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany), which is currently the junior partner in the German government. From time to time he is asked by the party leadership to produce think-tank like papers on key policy issues.
Because of his former time in New York, Jens is also a member of the German alumni of “Freunde of International House New York”. Since its founding in 1924, International House has transformed the lives of more than 65,000 alumni, including individuals who went on to become Nobel Prize winners, heads of state, award winning authors, singers, actors, and CEOs. International House was conceived by a YMCA official named Harry Edmonds, who had a chance encounter with a lonely Chinese graduate student in 1909. The philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the Cleveland H. Dodge family led to the construction of International House in 1924. The German section provides financial assistance for students from poor countries, who would otherwise be unable to study in New York City.
