Philipp Freise joined KKR in 2001, is Co-Head of European Private Equity and serves as a member of KKR's European Private Equity and Growth Equity Investment Committees, as well as its European Portfolio Management Committee. He was a scholar of the German National Scholarship foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) and graduated top of his class at WHU Koblenz, EDHEC Lille and University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business. He later worked at McKinsey & Company in Vienna, Frankfurt and New York, and subsequently co-founded Berlin-based venture investment firm Venturepark, Europe's first pan-European incubator. In 2009, Mr. Freise was named a Young Global Leader and in 2014, a member of the Agenda Council on the Future of Financing and Capital of the World Economic Forum. Mr. Freise is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden Foundation, Chairman of its development committee, and a member of its nominations and remuneration committee. Mr. Freise also serves as Vice-Chairman of the Kuratorium of the Bayreuth Opera Festival (Gesellschaft der Freunde von Bayreuth).