Jan Wicke

Dr Jan Wicke was born on 12 August 1968 and grew up in Cologne. He studied business administration/economics at the University of Bamberg and earned his doctorate there in 1997 with a thesis focused on individual asset management, while working in securities asset management at DZ Bank (DG Capital Management) in Frankfurt in the early-to-mid 1990s.

He began his insurance career at DBV-Winterthur Versicherung, joining as an assistant to the management before becoming head of business management and controlling. In 2003 he was appointed deputy board member for finance and capital investments, and in 2004 (around age 34–36) a full board member responsible for finance, the Netherlands business, and international cooperations. In 2007 he moved to Wüstenrot & Württembergische (W&W) as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer, a role he held until 2014.

In 2014, Wicke joined the Board of Management of Talanx AG, taking responsibility for the group's Retail Germany (private and commercial insurance) division and serving as Chairman of the Board of Management of HDI Deutschland AG. He led a multi-year restructuring of the German retail business over six years. Effective 1 September 2020, he succeeded Dr Immo Querner as Group Chief Financial Officer of Talanx AG; Dr Christopher Lohmann took over as CEO of HDI Germany. He has described himself as a strategy-minded CFO and a "team player," emphasizing that "figures are always written by people" and that understanding the people and operations behind the numbers is essential to interpreting them correctly.

As Talanx CFO he is responsible for Accounting, Controlling, Finance/Treasury, Investments/Real Estate, Risk Management, Reinsurance Procurement, Taxes, IT Security, and Collections/Disbursement across the group.

• No publicly documented personal venture/angel investment thesis exists for Jan Wicke; he should not be approached as a seed-stage angel investor.
• In his corporate capacity, his "investment" remit is the management of Talanx Group's institutional asset base and capital allocation as Group CFO — an insurance balance-sheet investment mandate (fixed income, real estate, infrastructure, etc.), not startup equity.
• His stated professional philosophy blends finance with strategy: "A CFO with an affinity for strategy — with figures on the one hand and strategic aspects on the other."
• Strategic priorities under his tenure have centered on disciplined capital management, earnings growth, and the profitable turnaround and scaling of Talanx's retail and primary insurance operations.