Welcome Tilman, Point Nine’s new General Counsel
I am very excited to announce that Tilman Langer has recently joined Point Nine as General Counsel.
If you’ve done any kind of business with us recently, chances are that his name rings a bell or that you’ve at least been on some email threads together, as we have been working with Tilman as external counsel on countless transactions over the last few years. Over time, Tilman worked more and more for Point Nine and last year we understood that we now have enough work across our funds to keep Tilman busy full time. We are glad that he accepted the invitation and decided to join our team.
I first met Tilman in 2004 (some 14 years ago!) when he interviewed me for my first full time job — an analyst role at Greenhill. During my almost four years at Greenhill, I came to appreciate Tilman as one of the smartest, most positive, efficient and pragmatic folks I’ve ever worked for. One of the things that always impressed me was his ability to explain the most complex of matters in a simple way. Also, his Excel skills were second to none — and after all, this is what impresses young analysts the most! :-)
Tilman didn’t only get me into banking, though. He also got me into cycling. During my time in Frankfurt we cycled together on many weekends — it must have been thousands of kilometers in total. And it definitely must have been due to his influence and passion for cycling and not my intrinsic motivation, as I have not cycled once since leaving Frankfurt in 2008.
I was perplexed when I first learned that Tilman was a lawyer by training. A lawyer-banker?! I did not know that such a career path even existed. But it turned out that being at home in the worlds of law and finance at the same time is a very powerful combination that provides for a very unique perspective and skillset.
Tilman left the world of finance in 2010 and got back to law. Shortly thereafter he started supporting Point Nine on a deal-by-deal basis. It seems that both sides have liked the cooperation as we were doing more and more together and he also helped many of our portfolio companies on various matters.
I am glad that Tilman has joined us full time now — we couldn’t have dreamed of a better candidate for this role!
P.S. Having Tilman in-house means that we’ll be able to execute new investments even faster. An added benefit for founders is that in many cases we’ll be able to remove or limit the standard “cost coverage clause“ that you see in all term sheets, since we frequently won’t need an external lawyer and are not going to bill any of Tilman’s time to start ups.
