— Founders & Operators
Aligned to the structure, not the pitch
Founder-aligned involvement with operators building real things. Patient where the structure rewards patience; structurally engaged where the engagement is earned.
01 · Opening
Strategic by Practice
Personal at Core
André Kothes — a private practice of enterprise, capital and cross-border judgment. A small number of engagements, attended to over years rather than quarters.
SCROLL
02 · Transition
One Practice
A single discipline held across four horizons. Companies, capital, counsel, and cross-border work — practised as one habit of mind, not four product lines.
03 · Four Horizons
One Practice
Four Horizons
Companies and operating enterprise · Capital and allocation · Counsel and judgment · Bridges and cross-border practice. Held in one frame.
04 · Horizon I
— H · 01Companies & enterprise
Building
& Holding
Founder-aligned involvement with operating companies — building them, holding them, and being patient through the cycles that follow. Structurally engaged when the structure rewards it; structurally absent when it does not.
Discover More05 · Horizon II
— H · 02Capital & allocation
Capital
& Allocation
Private capital deployed with the discipline applied to operating businesses. Long-horizon by default; concentrated by conviction; held when the position is worth holding for longer than a single cycle.
Discover More06 · Horizon III
— H · 03Counsel & strategy
Counsel
& Judgment
Private counsel to principals and the small circles around them — where the question is hard, the room is closed, and the right answer requires more than one perspective held at once. Read first, judge slowly, commit fully.
Discover More07 · Horizon IV
— H · 04Cross-border & bridges
Bridges
& Cross-Border
Germany, Greater China, Cyprus, Europe — held inside one judgment, without flattening their differences. Cross-border read as a perspective on the work, not as a territory or office network.
Discover More08 · The Core
— Operating model
The Practice
A consistent habit of mind that runs through every engagement: read first, judge slowly, commit fully, hold long. The same discipline applied to companies, capital, counsel and cross-border work — kept on a single page rather than split across departments.
09 · Method
— From question to position
From Question
to Position
A four-phase habit that turns a hard question into a held position. Each phase narrows what is being asked, and widens what is being committed. The work is a sequence, not a pitch.
Read01
Hear the question being asked
Most consequential questions arrive misstated. The first work is to read the situation as it actually is — before deciding what to do about it.
Frame02
Build the structure the answer needs
Identify the structural questions inside the surface one. Build the frame the eventual position will live inside — legal, financial, relational, geographic.
Commit03
Take the position
Reduce optionality. Align incentives. Choose a side — in writing, in capital, in time — and accept the cost of choosing it.
Hold04
Stay through the cycle
The interesting positions are the ones one is still willing to hold five years later. Stewardship is the discipline of not flinching when the room does.
10 · Partnership
— Counterparties
A Small Set of
Counterparties
Engagements are entered into selectively and from existing context. Three kinds of counterparties recur across the work — each with its own clock, its own posture, and its own way of measuring what works.
— Investors & Capital Partners
Co-invested in mixed structures
Private capital partners — families, single-investor vehicles, and the occasional institution — working together on positions one would be willing to hold alone.
— Families & Holdings
Stewardship across cycles
Closely-held structures with multi-generational questions that outlast a single quarter, a single cycle, or a single principal. Where the interesting question is what not to do.
11 · Principles
— A habit of mind
Working Principles
— P · 01DISCRETION
Discretion
A working condition
Most of the work happens before anything is announced — and most of it is never announced at all. Discretion is treated as method, not as marketing; as the working condition on which the rest depends.
— P · 02PATIENCE
Patience
Long horizons, smaller bets
Most decisions worth taking improve when held longer than the room expects. The discipline is to be willing to say no for years before saying yes for decades — and to remain genuinely curious in the meantime.
— P · 03INDEPENDENCE
Independence
Selective by design
No firm, no fund, no public mandate. The work is conducted in a personal capacity and held to the standard of one's own counsel — which is the only standard that compounds across a career.
— P · 04CONCENTRATION
Concentration
A few relationships, kept close
A short list of counterparties, attended to over years rather than quarters. The interesting questions arrive through the same handful of doors, again and again — and stay interesting only if they are answered well the first time.
12 · Close