Meet Katharina Neuhaus

Katharina Neuhaus is what you might call a “career entrepreneur”. She has leveraged her ingenuity, work ethic, and creative problem-solving ability to design her career roadmap and is now using those traits to help fellow entrepreneurs as they navigate their careers and build businesses.

Katharina’s choice to join AlixPartners’ London office in 2014 was an intentional one. She wanted the chance to work with and learn from the firm’s diverse community of experts. “When I was interviewing for the firm, I saw first-hand that people at all levels of AlixPartners are very hands-on. There’s not a lot of hierarchy,” she said.

While she initially served as a Business Development Analyst in the Corporate Services community, Katharina’s drive and passion for learning were evident to firm leaders who eventually tapped her to move into the Enterprise Improvement consulting community so that she could help solve client challenges.

Katharina’s entrepreneurial spirit and people focus also helped her make long-lasting contributions to the culture of AlixPartners. She partnered with Georg Beyschlag, a colleague in the German office, to create the AlixPartners NextGen Employee Resource Group which promotes intergenerational exchange amongst colleagues and clients with a special focus on supporting the career development of early-stage professionals.

“I was given five minutes to pitch the NextGen group to senior leadership,” she said. “They immediately approved the idea and asked what resources I would need to build the group. I think this example is indicative of the AlixPartners culture. If you have an idea and you’re willing to do the work, the firm will help you turn that idea into a reality.”

When asked to share her advice for early career professionals like those in the NextGen community, Katharina responded with four tips: “be curious, be proactive, be visible, and sign up for things.”

After leaving AlixPartners in 2018, Katharina took some time off to focus on what she might like to do in the next stage of her career. During this time, her commitment to networking proved invaluable as her connections lead her first to her role as a Country Manager at a fashion technology start-up, followed by her current role as Principal at Vorwerk Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund based in Berlin.

In her new role, Katharina will serve as a coach, mentor, and partner to the founders of the fund’s portfolio companies but she realizes that for her to succeed in each of these roles, she must turn to others for support. “Sometimes founders have questions that I can’t answer,” she said. “Because I have a strong network, I find that I usually know at least one person that I can turn to in order to find the answers that the founders and I are looking for.”

Katharina has also found her community of mentors to be invaluable to her career development. “My mentors provided me an external, objective view of my strengths and weaknesses.” She said. “They’ve taught me that it is important to work on your weaknesses but it is perhaps even more important to work on your strengths so that you can use your talents to maximize your impact.”

Looking forward, Katharina is excited to continue to partner with entrepreneurs of all kinds, whether they are building their career or their business. “Throughout my career, I have been able to work with motivated, driven, and innovative people” she said. “I feel that the entrepreneurial sector is the right place for me to expand my professional community of like-minded individuals who will continue to inspire me to solve exciting challenges and to create new and better ways of doing things.”

Beyond her entrepreneurial ventures, Katharina is an avid runner, a passionate scuba diver, and a lover of modern art. Always in search of an adventure, Katharina’s passion for travel recently lead her to complete a three-week hike in the Himalayan Mountains.

Images from Katharina's speaking engagements and adventures in the Himalayan mountains and Jordanian desert