An energetic forty-eight year-old man with short, hedgehog-like hair and a firm handshake, Andreas Pinkwart is a banker and economist by background but he has a soft spot for science. In fact, as a schoolboy, he finished second in the "Jugend forscht" chemistry competition in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). By the age of 20, while still a student, Pinkwart became a member of the Free Democratic Party and later headed the party chairman's parliamentary group in the German Federal Parliament. There he developed his staunchly liberal views, which in Europe stand for individual liberty, for government "as limited as possible and as extensive as necessary" and for low taxation and minimal state intervention.
After becoming a banker at ...
