About the Author

How He Got Here

Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld is an international manager, investor, and entrepreneur. He is the Founder and CEO of K2Elevation, a company that invests in and develops international enterprises in the technology and biotech segment. Currently his portfolio consists of activities in Germany, Austria, and the US. He is Chairman of KONUX and Chairman of FERNRIDE, a member of the supervisory boards of GreyOrange, Fero Labs and NEOM as well as an Advisory Partner at EMH Partners GmbH.

Prior to this, Dr. Kleinfeld was the first CEO of NEOM. He is a member of the NEOM board and advises the Kingdom in matters of economic development. From 2008 to 2017, he served as Chairman and CEO of Alcoa/Arconic. He steered the company through one of the worst commodity crises in its history while building out high-value aerospace, jet engine, and automotive businesses and positioned the company in innovative high-tech sectors, finally allowing the company to be successfully split into Alcoa and Arconic.

Previously, Dr. Kleinfeld had a twenty-year career with Siemens. He became CEO of Siemens AG in early 2005, and successfully led the company through a substantial transformation. Prior to this, he had been President and CEO responsible for the largest Siemens region, the Siemens U.S. Corporation. In this function, he successfully restructured the U.S. operations, and this resulted in a sustainable turnaround. During his tenure at Siemens, Dr. Kleinfeld held various positions in the medical, telecommunication, IT, automation, and power generation businesses. Before Siemens, he worked as a product manager in the pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland. He began his career in consulting.

Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld is an Honorary Senator of the Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting, an Honorary Trustee of the Brookings Institution, a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Board of Directors of The Metropolitan Opera. He was appointed advisor to several U.S. Presidents in various roles, was also a member of the Global CEO Advisory Council of Premier Li of the People’s Republic of China, a member of the Mayor of Shanghai’s International Business Leaders Advisory Council, and served as a member of the Foreign Investment Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of Russia, the Chairman of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, and the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum. He also served on the boards of the Center of Disease Control, Turner Construction, Bayer, Citibank, Hewlett Packard, and Morgan Stanley. Dr. Kleinfeld was born in Bremen, Germany, and holds both an MBA from the University of Göttingen and a PhD from the University of Würzburg, Germany. He holds a dual citizenship from the USA and Germany and lives in New York.