He also heads Adamant Assets, which supports private equity funds, family offices and other institutional investors on strategy, asset allocation, portfolio construction and investment due diligence. Franz previously served as the Chief Investment Officer of the Max Planck Foundation in Munich from 2008 to 2021. He was the first employee at the foundation and built a broadly diversified, global portfolio across asset classes in both developed and emerging markets with the majority invested in alternatives. Previously, he worked for a private software startup managing the financial department and was a portfolio manager with BTV, a Munich based family office, where he started to build an alternative investment practice.

Franz has accumulated extensive experience across a wide variety of private asset classes and funds. He has carried out investment and operational due diligence on more than 200 funds since the late 1990s and has been actively involved in supporting new fund managers to launch funds.

Franz started his career as a management consultant in 1995, where he, amongst others, spent most of his time as a consultant at the Technical University of Munich. He holds a Master of Business Administration (cum laude) from the University of Passau, Germany.