Management Team

Stephan Fritz
Chief Executive Officer

Prior to joining Harcourt in 2006, Stephan Fritz worked at NIB Capital Bank from 2001 to 2006, in his latest position as Managing Director of NIB Capital in Den Haag and Member of the Board of NIB Capital-Petercam Derivatives in Brussels. His responsibilities included trading, structured products and asset management. In addition he acted as Advisor to the Board of Directors of Harcourt from 2002 to 2006. Before joining NIB Capital in 2001, his former positions included: Head of Fixed Income and FX Trading at AIG in Paris and London, Head of Financial Innovations Group at DG Bank and Swaps Trader at Deutsche Bank, both in Frankfurt.
 

Stephan Fritz graduated from the University of Southern California with a Master in Applied Mathematics and from the University of Ulm with a Bachelor in Economics and Mathematics.

Dr. Georg Wessling
Chief Investment Officer

Prior to joining Harcourt in 2005, Dr. Georg Wessling worked as an investment consultant for Ecofin Investment Consulting AG from 1995 to 2004. At Ecofin he was responsible for alternative asset classes, such as hedge funds, private equity and real estate and advised some of Ecofin's largest clients. In this role he was also involved in asset liability management and defining strategic asset allocations. He was appointed Head of Portfolio Management at Harcourt in January 2006 and CIO in 2009.
 

Dr. Georg Wessling studied at the Universities of Nijmegen (Netherlands), Muenster (Germany) and Berne (Switzerland). He obtained a Master in Economics from the University of Berne and a PhD in Finance from the University of Zurich.

Frédéric Berney
Chief Risk Officer, Head of Risk Management & IT

Prior to joining Harcourt in 2003, Frédéric Berney was a Senior Vice President at Sanwa International in London where he was responsible for managing the Risk Measurement Team. Before joining Sanwa he worked for CSFB in Switzerland from 1995 to 1999 where he worked on the implementation of an independent market risk management system; he later became Market Risk Manager for the Equity Derivatives Division.

Frédéric Berney graduated from the University of Lausanne with a Master in Banking and Finance and a Bachelor in Economics.


Reto Candrian
Head of Business Development



Prior to joining Harcourt in 2004, Reto Candrian worked at the Pan-European risk-arbitrage and special situations desk of Credit Suisse First Boston in London. As an analyst, he focused on merger arbitrage, stub trades and double listings. He started his career in the portfolio management department of Bank Leu AG, a subsidiary of Credit Suisse Group. In 2006 Reto moved to Hong Kong to build up the Hong Kong Office for Harcourt which he successfully headed until 2009.