Dirk studied Economics at the universities of Göttingen and Hamburg. In Dec. 1987 he joined BASF in Ludwigshafen and worked in the Capital Market Department responsible for the long-term financing of the BASF Group. From 1991-1995 he was Head of Department of Economics at Wintershall AG in Kassel, which runs the oil and gas business of BASF. He was responsible for M&A-transactions, project financing, controlling and financing of the Wintershall Group. Afterwards he joined BASF Schwarzheide GmbH, which runs a big chemical production site close to Dresden. There he was Division Head for Financing/Controlling/Accounting and Managing Director of SEWOGE GmbH, the local real estate company of BASF.

In 2001, when BASF started the venture capital activities, Dirk became Managing Director of BASF Venture Capital GmbH and built up these activities for BASF. With offices in San Francisco, Boston, HongKong, Tokyo and Ludwigshafen he made direct as well as fund investments in NA, Asia and Europe. Dirk has still a huge network in the international venture capital business and an enormous experience in structuring VC-transactions and building up companies. He holds board seats in several of his portfolio companies and was involved in a lot of IPOs and trade sale exits.