Robert Manz
Partner
Enterprise Investors
(Warsaw)
Robert Manz is a Partner and Member of the Board of Enterprise Investors, a leading private equity fund management company in Central Europe. Since 1990, Enterprise Investors (EI) has raised five funds with total capital under management of more than $1.1 billion and invested over $950 million in 100 companies in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region.
Mr. Manz joined EI as one of its first investment professionals in 1990. During his nearly sixteen years involvement with the CEE region, Mr. Manz has made investments in the areas of telecommunications, retailing, internet, printing, consumer banking, packaging, chemicals, and other industries in Poland and other CEE countries. He has served on the boards of numerous investee companies and currently is a director of Nay a.s., a leading Slovak retailer of consumer electronics and appliances, and Opoczno S.A., Poland’s leading ceramic tile producer. Mr. Manz has led EI’s successful exit from a number of key portfolio companies. Mr. Manz currently heads up EI’s investment strategy in the telecommunications sector, is responsible for co-investments with industry investors and has special responsibility for EI’s business development efforts in Slovakia and Hungary.
After serving three consecutive years as the founding President of the Polish Private Equity Association (PPEA), Mr. Manz is now a Vice-President of PPEA’s board of directors. Between 1999 and 2003, Mr. Manz represented Poland on the Board of Directors of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA). Since June 2003, he is Chairman of EVCA’s Central and Eastern Europe Task Force.
Prior to joining EI, Mr. Manz worked with Dillon, Read & Co., an investment bank based in New York, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions for multinational corporations.
Mr. Manz graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude, with a degree in Finance and Management of Entrepreneurship.