Michael Kaschke

Michael Kaschke has been an Advisor to EQT since 2020.

During his professional career, Michael worked for the ZEISS Group for 30 years. He was a member of the Executive Board of Carl Zeiss AG for more than 20 years, most recently as President and CEO of the ZEISS Group from 2011 - 2020. Under his leadership, ZEISS developed into a successful, future-oriented portfolio company with leading global positions in its areas of business. The ZEISS Medizintechnik IPO, which he initiated and played a key role in organizing via a reverse IPO, resulted in the listing of Carl Zeiss Meditec AG on the German stock exchange MDAX and TecDax, making it one of the world's leading medical technology providers.

Michael has sat on several supervisory boards in large, listed companies such as Henkel and Deutsche Telekom. From 2014 to 2020, he was a Member of the German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat), one of Germany's most important scientific-political advisory committees. In 2019, he was elected to the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Following his departure from ZEISS, Michael is a shareholder of Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG. He is chairman of the supervisory board of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and president of the Stifterverband, a joint initiative started by companies and foundations in the fields of education, science and innovation in Germany. He also lectures in optical medical technology at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Michael graduated with a degree in physics from the University in Jena in 1983. He obtained two doctorates, the first in 1986 (Dr. rer. nat.) and the second in 1988 (Dr. sc. nat).

EQT Board Memberships:
Current: Board Member of Ottobock
Former: Chairperson of Carl Zeis Vision