John Kornblum
• Chairman of Germany at Lazard LLP
• American Ambassador to Germany
Capstan Capital is pleased to announce that Ambassador John C. Kornblum is joining our firm as a Senior Advisor, effective immediately.
Capstan Capital is delighted that John is joining our firm as a Senior Advisor, where he will help us further expand our German presence with German Mittelstand family offices and institutional investors. Capstan Capital is a young firm and John brings a wealth of experience and deep access to Germany's entrepreneurial elite and decision makers.
During a distinguished career as a diplomat and businessman, John has been at the center of European and Atlantic developments for more than 35 years. He became Chairman of Germany at Lazard LLP in 2001 after completing his tour as American Ambassador to Germany. During his tenure as a diplomat, John Kornblum had played a defining role in many important events including President Ronald Reagan's historic appearance at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in 1987. John helped negotiate several of the agreements leading to the end of the Cold War, including the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin and the Helsinki Final Act. As Assistant Secretary for European Affairs in the Department of State, he was also deputy negotiator of the Dayton Peace Agreement and later US special envoy to the Balkans. As Chairman, John helped build Lazard to become one of the leading corporate advisors in Germany and personally helped initiate several important transactions. He was especially active in advising Mittelstand customers in a strategic and financial advisory capacity. Since leaving Lazard in 2009, he has served as Senior Counsellor to Noerr LLP, one of Germany's leading law firms and has advised a number of German and American companies. He has also been a member of the Supervisory Boards of Bayer AG, Thyssen-Krupp Technologies, and Motorola Europe. Currently, John serves on a number of other advisory councils and boards such as the American Academy in Berlin, the German Institute for Community Organizing (DICO) and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin.
