Cornelius Matthes held a number of different roles within Deutsche Bank Group. He began his professional career in the Corporate Development Department where he worked on projects and transactions in different European countries. From 2007 onwards, after having become Director, he served as Deputy Head and Member of the Management Board at Deutsche Asset Management in Italy. He has comprehensive experience in M&A, strategy, fund raising and distribution functions. In addition he played an instrumental role in the promotion of several successful mutual funds within the green investments field.
In 2010, Cornelius joined Dii (Desertec Industrial Initiative) as Director Business Alliances. Among his duties, he was responsible for building Dii's network of investors and industrial partners, in charge of raising a total of EUR 25m in several funding rounds. He was also leading the cooperation with industrial partners as well as technology initiatives and associations, developing in addition the operations departments such as Finance or HR.
During his time in Dii, Cornelius was working on a wide range of topics in the field of energy, starting with solar PV/CSP, wind, biomass technologies, electrical and thermal storage, power grids (both transmission and distribution grids), e-mobility, conventional power generation and energy systems. In this context he was working with a number of high ranking experts from international blue chip- and also some startup companies. He has built an outstanding network in the energy sector, particularly in several European countries like Germany, Italy, Spain or the UK, but also in the middle east north Africa region.
In late 2013, he joined Building Energy as Managing Director MENA to set up and lead the new regional headquarters in Dubai. After achieving significant results such as the award and development of two 50 MW PV projects in Egypt, he decided to set up his own renewable energy project development ventures from spring 2016, together with partners for the MENA region and beyond. He is also Senior Advisor of several companies in the renewable energy field and helping start up companies as member of the Dubai Angel Network.
Cornelius studied Business Administration in Germany and Italy and wrote his master thesis in New York (USA). He is guest lecturer at several universities and was awarded Solar Pioneer 2015. He served on boards/advisory boards of several associations like MESIA or RIAB of the International Energy Agency (IEA). As a well-respected leader in renewable energy and finance, he is regularly invited as speaker or moderator for high level international conferences and also author of numerous articles and papers.