Born in Varel, Germany in 1952, Hans-Paul Buerkner studied at the University of Bochum, and took an MA at Yale before going to Oxford to complete a DPhil in development economics. After Oxford, he began working in corporate finance at Commerzbank. In 1981, Buerkner joined Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and was part of the teams opening new offices for the firm in Germany and building the Financial Services Practice.. He went on to become BCG’s first CEO from Europe, overseeing the establishment of 20 new offices across the globe and pioneering the firm’s public sector and social impact practices. This narrative is excerpted from an interview with the Rhodes Trust on 9 December 2025.
Hans-Paul Buerkner
Germany & St Catherine’s 1976
Hans-Paul's DPhil Ceremony
Hans-Paul and Zia Qureshi at DPhil Ceremony
Hans-Paul's DPhil Ceremony
Hans-Paul at Davos
Hans-Paul on Future Series Panel
Hans-Paul with Colleagues
Hans-Paul with Clients in China
Hans-Paul with Colleagues in China
‘At that time, China was completely off limits’
Varel, where I was born, is in the northern part of Germany, very close to the North Sea. My mother grew up on a farm there and it’s where I spent a significant portion of my childhood, because my father travelled around the world a lot, building factories. We used to call the area where I grew up the flatlands, and I still really like going back there.
I enjoyed school mostly and I was a good student. When I went on to university, I chose the University of Bochum because that was the place you could do Chinese and Japanese studies. That interest stemmed from books belonging to my father, because he had travelled in East Asia. And I started, really, to teach myself Kanji, the Chinese characters. So, alongside business and economics, I studied modern Chinese at the university, along with Chinese history and Chinese economic development. At that time, of course, China was completely off limits, and I was not a fan of Mao and his Red Bible, but it was really interesting to learn about the history of China, and also to learn about Japanese history and culture. At the same time, I also tried to continue learning French and to improve my Russian. I must admit I’m not very good at languages, but I find them very interesting.
Partway through my undergraduate studies, I got admitted to Yale to do a master’s in economic development. That was very different, with quite small classes and fewer of them, but a lot more papers to write. I was able to use datasets from professors who had gathered them first hand and I was writing about everything from fertility behaviour in Thailand to economic development in Ghana. It was an intense experience, and one I very much enjoyed.
On applying for the Rhodes Scholarship
My father had spent a lot of time in the US as part of his work, and he installed an adaptor in our TV so that we could receive AFNTV, the American Forces Network Television. We would watch American football together, and there was this college match where they mentioned a quarterback who had been a Rhodes Scholar. That was the first time I heard about the Scholarship. Then, in 1975, there was a very small notice on a billboard at the university in Bochum about the Scholarships and I went off and found a PhD in the library about Rhodes and his various wills. I found it quite fascinating. I wanted to study abroad and I thought Oxford would be a very good place. Quite honestly, I applied without really knowing what to expect.
The interviews for the Scholarship were held in Hamburg, and I remember staying overnight in a youth hostel which had this sign that read ‘Beware of Pickpockets and Thieves.’ It was quite an experience. And after the interview, they called us all into a room to announce the results. When I learned I’d won, I remember asking for advice about which college to choose. The advice differed wildly, but I chose St Catherine’s, and I was very happy with my choice.
‘My research felt more like detective work’
At Oxford, I was lucky enough to end up working with Judith Heyer at Somerville. She encouraged me to do development economics by working on the ground. Later, I was also fortunate to work with Tony Courakis, who specialised more on the money and finance side. My thesis was about savings behaviour and savings mobilisation in The Philippines and Thailand. One of my fellow students in Oxford was working on the same topic for Pakistan and he later went to the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank, and we’re still in touch. The other person I was close to was from Canada and went on to become a professor of biochemistry who has worked to improve food security in Haiti.
My research felt a lot like detective work, finding shreds of information and putting them together. I went to Manila, Quezon City, and the professor I’d been corresponding with there told me the data I wanted didn’t exist. It was the middle of the rainy season and I was cold and damp and I felt like the world had come to an end. But step by step, I worked myself out of this big hole and found the data. It made me see how much there was beyond my own community and even my own country.
Alongside my academic work in Oxford, I also spent a lot of time doing sports – tennis, football, squash and table tennis – and going to concerts and the theatre. I never played cricket, but when you passed by the Middle Common Room, there were always two or three people who would watch the cricket matches that went on for days. I remember somebody saying, ‘You really have to acquire a taste for it.’
Rhodes House was very different in those days too. Scholars only went there for the welcome and farewell dinners and to have tea with the Warden once a term. My memories of Rhodes House and Oxford are very positive, and I also found it fascinating to be in the UK. It widened my horizons.
‘Getting it done is absolutely crucial, even if it can sometimes feel tedious’
Right after I finished my thesis and left Oxford, I joined a bank in Germany. I was quite frustrated, because there was not much opportunity to use one’s ability. So after a few months there, I started applying for different jobs. Then I saw several openings at the Boston Consulting Group. I had no idea about consulting but it sounded quite interesting. BCG was going through a difficult period. This was the early 1980s, with the second oil crisis and a recession in the US. Selling projects to clients was really hard, but it was an important experience. By the end of the decade, BCG was really broadening its scope beyond strategy to operations, organisation, HR and technology. From the mid-1980s, I started building a financial services practice in Germany and in 1996, I became the global head of financial services.
Before I became CEO, I was already thinking a lot about how the consulting landscape was changing. I think it’s crucial to see developments not just from one year to another but over the years and decades. In the early 2000s, after the bursting of the e-commerce bubble and September 11, people had lost confidence in the future. I strongly believed then that the future is bright. It is not just happening. We make the future happen. We went on to achieve double digit growth and, despite the great financial recession and the pandemic, we at BCG continued to grow strongly. That’s important commercially, but even more so emotionally. You want to work somewhere where you’re being required to move forward, where you get greater responsibilities year after year after year and where you can achieve personal growth. That’s why I thought a lot about how to change the firm and move from doing projects to really being the transformation partner for companies. Having creative ideas is one thing, but getting it done is absolutely crucial, even though it can sometimes feel tedious.
One big project for me was opening BCG’s public sector practice and the social impact practice, working together with the Gates Foundation, with the World Food Programme, with Save the Children. You can’t do it on your own, but, with others, you can really change the world and you can have a significant positive impact. I have a special passion for the emerging markets, which is not always shared by everybody. One of the things I’ve enjoyed most has been building our business, in Asia, in the Middle East and in Africa.
Today, the question of what is the value that we have helped create is at the centre of everything. I think the important thing is to stay confident, keep on investing, hold on to your people and mobilize them and not just to focus on the bottom line.
‘I’m really optimistic’
What Oxford taught me is that there is a very, very large and complex world out there with very different challenges. At the moment, the world seems to be in such bad shape, and also in a bad mood, and what we see in the press and across social media can make us feel vulnerable. There are big challenges, but also a big need to move things forward. I’m really optimistic that we can find ways of growing while at the same time cutting back on emissions and on the use of resources.
The important thing is not to believe we are simply the object of what is happening around us. We really can make a difference. I feel very good about the expansion of the Rhodes Scholarship and I really think it would be great to make it even more global. We’re on a good path to bring people from around the world together.