I am not unemployed...

...but working as a strategy consultant in one of the top international consulting firms. Even though this is an excellent company which consistently ranks in the top 5 or top 10 of the favorite companies for MBAs to work for worldwide (Forbes list) and has an extremely selective admissions process, I have realized that I am not passionate about this type of work. While I am not opposed to making a detailed analysis of things when necessary, I cannot get too excited about finding out the last detailed function in MS Excel and writing slides in MS Powerpoint, especially since I sometimes have to deal with industries which do not interest me at all. Also, while I travel a lot within Germany, I feel that the job does not give me enough of an opportunity to play out my international experience and background.

I would rather...

- work in an industry I care about (e.g., the media (TV, Radio, etc.) industry, any kind of sports-related industry, the Internet industry, media rights (e.g., for sports events), travel industry, possibly M&A/private equity, other types of deal-making);
- make deals instead of over-analyzing data;
- make decisions (including personnel decisions) instead of crunching numbers;
- work in an international environment on topics which cross borders instead of sometimes dealing with domestic-only projects;
- accordingly, I am not opposed to international/intercontinental travel, but would embrace it (am mobile and can live/work wherever except Iraq and similar);
- have more responsibility rather than less - and for results instead of recommendations.

My background...

- I'm almost 33 years old;
- Dual German/US law degree; admitted to the bar in Germany and New York (but not looking for a purely legal position);
- Former Fulbright Scholar;
- MBA degree from the University of Chicago;
- would consider myself bi-lingual (German (native)/English), plus some skills in French, Spanish, Korean (but not fluent enough to negotiate in these languages);
- ~ 1 year experience in strategy consulting
- ~ 5 years professional experience in the Internet/Media industry, working as general counsel and business development director for one of the largest European Internet companies (publicly listed)/former subsidiary of one of the largest media companies in the world, where I was a part of their "high potential program for younger executives";
- among other things, drafted and partly negotiated one of the largest e-commerce deals ever there (>€ 50 mio. value) as well as other e-commerce deals;
- was involved in doing a lot of work on a successful IPO that raised >€ 500 mio. in cash, as well as transactional work on acquisitions of several companies around Europe with a total value in shares of >€ 1 billion at the time of the acquisition (a lot less now...);
- dealt with preparing, coordinating and attending supervisory board meetings with very senior board members of the largest media companies in the world attending;
- led teams of up to 15 people in my previous job, and was a member of the supervisory board of a company with 130 employees.

My passions...

...are travel, sports (particularly soccer/NBA) and the Internet/media (I am a news junkie...and I love Flyertalk! ).


Corresponding to my background, I have certain expectations with regards to salary and responsibility, but I think that there must be some interesting opportunities where people are sought after who can make things happen in a transnational and -continental context.

Where else to look for an international position than here at Flyertalk!

Most board members or decisionmakers in large private equity firms/investment banks might not have the time to read Flyertalk Community Buzz threads...but hey, maybe someone can forward this to them...and we must have some headhunters here also, no?