Jochen Wermuth

Jochen Wermuth (born 13 December 1969 in Boston, Massachusetts, to German Fulbright-scholar parents) is a German climate-impact investor. He earned two bachelor's degrees (mathematics and economics) and a master's in economics from Brown University, graduating in 1992, and completed D.Phil. qualifying exams in economics at Balliol College, Oxford. His early career was in post-Soviet economic reform: from 1993 he served as an EU-TACIS adviser to Russia's Ministry of Finance on fiscal-policy framework development, and he co-founded and headed the World Bank–sponsored Economic Expert Group under the Ministry of Finance from 1995 to 1997 — reportedly among the first to warn of Russia's looming 1998 default.

In 1997–1998 he was Director of Russian debt capital-markets origination in Deutsche Bank's Global Markets Division (based in Moscow), where he and his team raised roughly $8 billion in financing for Russia. In 1999 he left banking to found Wermuth Asset Management as a family office and investment advisory firm, and remains its Founding Partner and Chief Investment Officer. He credits a conversation with Nobel laureate Alexander Prokhorov — and the idea that solar technology could "lift two billion people out of poverty" — with turning his focus to climate solutions; he made his first solar-power investment in 2000.

Under Wermuth, WAM has advised on more than $1 billion of investments and shifted a majority of assets into sustainable-growth and clean-tech strategies, spanning listed equities, private equity/venture, infrastructure, hydropower, and forestry while excluding fossil fuels. He has held a range of public and civic roles, including membership on the investment committee of KENFO, Germany's sovereign nuclear-waste management fund (2017–2024), and steering-committee roles in the "Europeans for Divest-Invest" and Toniic "100% Impact" investor networks. He was part of the team that launched the Climate Endowment in 2019 and is associated with the World Economic Forum and the G20 Green Growth Action Alliance. In 2016 he made headlines for a €300,000 donation to Germany's Green Party ahead of the Baden-Württemberg state election.

• Core thesis: sustainability is now an economic, not merely ethical, decision — "a silent revolution is moving across the world; renewable energy is becoming cheaper than fossil fuels." WAM aims to prove that insisting on positive environmental impact raises risk-adjusted returns.
• Invests across asset classes for a "green industrial revolution": renewable power, energy storage and e-mobility, resource-efficient manufacturing (e.g. solar wafers), run-of-the-river hydropower, water utilities, and sustainable forestry.
• Vehicles include the Green Gateway / Green Growth Fund series (GGF1 reportedly returned ~13x gross; GGF2 targets European growth-stage private equity), the WAM Climate Endowment (evergreen, multi-asset), a run-of-the-river hydropower fund (targeting ~8–10% returns), listed-equity strategies, and forestry leases.
• Says "yes" to disruptive, resource-efficient companies with strong environmental impact and attractive growth economics; strictly excludes fossil fuels.
• Backs advocacy for the transition (Divest-Invest, GermanZero, 100% renewables) as part of the investment worldview.