Jens Schulte, formerly head of corporate venturing at PostFinance, the financial services arm of Switzerland’s national postal service Swiss Post, has been promoted to head of M&A for its parent.
Schulte will join forces with Thierry Golliard, who has been head of open innovation and venturing since December 2016. However, Schulte’s connection to the company had begun in December 2011 when he was hired as a senior project manager for M&A.
PostFinance appointed Schulte head of corporate venture capital (CVC) in January 2016, and he was promoted to head of future banking, overseeing innovation, growth and corporate venture capital, in October 2017.
Schulte told Global Corporate Venturing he initiated PostFinance’s corporate venturing program by establishing its investment process and policy. He also built an investment committee and a CVC team, identifying opportunities and bringing them to the agenda of management and the board of directors.
Schulte managed PostFinance’s dealflow and closed investments in seven companies, including a series B round of undisclosed size for social investment trading platform Wikifolio which the corporate led in 2017, taking an 11% stake in the process, and Schulte took a board seat at the Austria-based company as part of the deal.
Regarding Swiss Post, Schulte told GCV: “The biggest opportunity I foresee is inorganically growing and transforming the existing business directly and immediately through M&A. The biggest challenge I foresse is doing that with the right targets for the right price at the right time.”
– Photo of Jens Schulte courtesy of LinkedIn.
