As the CEO at Dii Desert Energy, Cornelius made its mission to drive the energy transition forward and pioneer the field of energy from the desert, leading the world to 100% renewables.

Cornelius is a well-respected leader and investor in the renewable energy industry and built several successful clean energy businesses and start-ups within Middle East and Africa. He has extensive board level experience from 10 years in Deutsche Bank (among others, youngest board member in Deutsche Bank Italy Group) and several leading renewable energy organizations and associations via pro bono work as well as different startup companies. He holds an MBA (Dipl. Kaufmann) from University of Passau, and speaks German, English, Italian, French and Russian.

His experience ranges from M&A transactions, asset management, developing utility scale renewable energy projects (including mid-market with private PPAs), pay-as-you-go solar to energy efficiency, including ESCO projects and new business models. Some of the projects and companies were executed in challenging settings or countries. He has led sizable organizations both in startup environments and blue-chip companies and has raised funds from angel investments to USD 100m+ projects with institutional investors.