Formerly a celebrated world champion, now an empathic investor. Nico Rosberg's change is unparalleled in the industry.
After his voluntary resignation as a professional racing driver, Nico Rosberg (35) made a name for himself above all as a successful entrepreneur. The audience of the popular VOX founder show "Die Höhle der Löwen" is currently getting to see it, where he engages with the candidates with great empathy. Most recently, he even had to leave the studio with tears in his eyes after the pitch of an app for volunteers upset him. But how did the cool athlete turn into an empathetic businessman?
Rosberg was born in Wiesbaden as the son of the Finnish racing legend Keke Rosberg (71) and his German mother. He also spent large parts of his childhood in Ibiza and Monaco, where he still lives today. The now 35-year-old became a man of the world at an early age. In addition to German and English, he is also fluent in French, Spanish and Italian. Funnily enough, however, no Finnish, despite his roots and his Finnish nationality, which he has alongside his German.
His racing career
His way into Formula 1 seemed paved early on. At the age of six he sat in a kart for the first time and in 2000, at the age of 15, he became vice European champion in Formula A. Incidentally, behind a certain Lewis Hamilton (35). After further years of apprenticeship in smaller racing series, the time had come in 2006: He made his debut for the Williams racing team in the premier class of racing. In 2010 he switched to Mercedes, where he and Michael Schumacher (51) took a seat in the Silver Arrows racing car as the German dream team.
The highlight of his sporting career was undoubtedly the year 2016, when he was able to keep Hamilton at a distance in the team-internal duel, and at the end of the season after Jochen Rindt (1942-1970), Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel (33) as the fourth German driver Formula -1 became world champion. But completely surprising for all experts, Rosberg announced his final career end just five days after his triumph at the age of 31.
His life as an entrepreneur
Since then, Rosberg has positioned itself as an entrepreneur. His preferred area: ecological mobility. For example, in 2018 he became an investor in the Formula E World Championship, a racing series for formula cars that are powered exclusively by electric motors. The former racing driver has also invested in various start-up companies, including the Berlin e-scooter provider Tier Mobility and the Silicon Valley company Chargepoint, which takes care of the infrastructure of the charging stations for electric cars.
In addition to his investments, the father of two daughters, who saw the light of day in 2015 and 2017, is also regularly committed to climate neutrality and ecological rethinking. Last year, for example, he took part in the World Economic Forum in Davos and spoke about the climate crisis. He also called for Formula 1 to switch from internal combustion to electric motors.
Together with business partners, Rosberg also founded the GreenTech Festival, which took place in Berlin for the first time in May 2019. Here, too, everything revolves around green future technologies from the areas of mobility, energy and lifestyle. In "Der Höhle der Löwen" Rosberg, who takes the place of Frank Thelen (44) who has left the club in the latest season, is looking to expand his portfolio – naturally with an eye on ecological future technologies, preferably in the area of mobility .