Christoph Schwager - strategically connecting the dots


Recognizing and Developing Opportunities fast, while Mastering Risks

Christoph Schwager, CPA

Strategist | Investor | Board Member | Expert for Strategy, M&A, Finance, Opportunity/Risk

Christoph Schwager is CEO of Hydreatio Holding and Chairman of Kardia Group. He is passionate creator of new ways and can move people. Selectively, he assumes board and advisory mandates. There he helps decision makers to reach their critical targets with maximal speed and success.

He is senior expert for strategy, finance, governance, M&A, effective opportunity, risk and control systems. He is successful transformation leader and was one of the most effective industry chief risk officers globally. 

Most organizations can be much more successful than they think. The way is to allow new mental models and more routine in prioritizing, decision making and acting differently.

It is his passion to increase competitiveness in high speed, successfully realize opportunities and potentials for organizations and projects, while staying in control and reducing risks and gaps.

This is especially effective when new things happen and much is at stake - for organizations and personally - in highly complex, uncertain and crisis situations.



"Everything I do, I believe in challenging the status-quo, structuring and moving organizations effectively with fun and passion - making them fit for the sustainability, digital and technology era with constantly changing needs."

Fit for Sustainable Future:

The biggest challenges of the 21. century aren’t mega trends like digitalization, technological progress or cyber, but the speed of change and how leaders and whole organizations react.

“It is a great pleasure for me to confirm the remarkable quality of your work. Under your leadership, Airbus made significant progress towards a more resilient business model regarding risks.“ 

Louis Gallois – Chairman Group PSA, CEO Airbus (EADS) and CEO SNCF

Leadership shall assure a high certainty of success. They shall make good future oriented decisions. They shall manage uncertainty, chances and risks, keep oversight and avoid predictable surprises -  but how exactly?

The path leads via:


My Engagements:


Contact details: christoph@christophschwager.com or +49 176 24851089

Awareness.  Future Viability.  Agility.

Christoph combines multiple roles: Next to his strategic, financial and investor's views, he brings an extraordinary deep understanding of the operational, regulatory and technological complexity, based on systemic and agile mindset and the combination of experiences in the global corporate world, in consulting, as entrepreneur and in the digital-start-up world. This makes him extraordinarily versatile. 

++ He was EY Partner responsible for the Enterprise Risk Management practice, was Airbus Chief Risk Officer, and worked in leadership finance and accounting positions, as a PwC Manager and in SME. Christoph founded a few companies. He is a thought leader for effective opportunities/risk management and co-founder of the international Think Tank beyondRM.org. He was almost ten years advisory board member of FIRM (Frankfurt Institute for Risk Management and Regulation), leads the DRSC working group Intangibles and is engaged in boards, as speaker and as lecturer. He is Diplom Kaufmann (equiv. to MBA), University of Augsburg, Germany, and Certified Public Accountant, University of Chicago, USA. 

++ The strategist, innovator and unshakable problem solver with a keen sense for others and situations has experienced a wide variety of managers and situations. His realization: not endless meetings, unnecessary complications or hasty actions lead to results but a clear purpose and aims, an agile mindset, quality and speed of decisions and actions, collaboration and communication as well as sound skills in recognition and prioritization of opportunities and risks. 

++ Since more than 20 years, many times, he has formed transformation and shaped successful structures, e.g., he has transformed Airbus into a chance and risk competent company and has developed a high-performance culture. With this he built an important basis for the  long-lasting positive development of Airbus. His methods enable to sharpen the focus for success and viability, strengthen strategy and decision making, realizing important opportunities while avoiding problems from arising.    

++ Since more than 25 years, he has dealt with finance, business analysis, transaction business and audit. This includes structuring, accounting, business diagnostics, sell-side and buy-side M&A, due diligence, portfolio and investment assessments, transaction accounting and post merger integration. 

++ Since more than 20 years, he is busy in projects. This includes experience in successfully steering (mega-) projects in the transformation business, (mega-) projects in the field of production, strategy and M&A projects, infrastructure and IT projects as well as critical small size projects. 

“the art of oversight and foresight is what gives it the extra for steering with more certainty of success and less predictable surprises.“

- Christoph Schwager