Rob Thielen

Rob Thielen is the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Waterland, which he founded in 1999. He developed Waterland into one of the best performing private equity groups in the world, active in 8 core countries, with acquisitions in over 20 countries across 4 continents. He is also a partner of Elbrus Capital, a Russia-focused private equity firm with a capital base of approximately $ 1 billion. Before he started Waterland, Rob gained extensive experience in numerous (cross-border) mergers and acquisitions as manager/shareholder of RWP, later on acquired by the Investec group. He was also general manager of his family’s fashion retail group. Earlier on, he worked as a turn-around consultant with IMCG and as account manager with the Corporate Finance Group of ABN AMRO Bank. Rob was a non-executive member of the board of RPS plc, a London Stock Exchange quoted company active in environmental consultancy and of arxes NCC AG, an IT service provider quoted at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. He was a member of the visiting faculty of the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University).