Cooperations

Banking and film festival – at first glance they don’t seem compatible, but in the case of Metzler and Nippon Connection, it’s different. By supporting the world’s largest festival for Japanese films since 2006, Metzler Bank underlines not only the sustainability of its commitment to Japan but also continues its long tradition of promoting cultural and social projects – particularly in Metzler’s hometown of Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Nippon Connection, which was founded in 2000 as a student initiative at Frankfurt’s Goethe University, shows more than 100 short and feature films on six festival days each year in May and also offers a highly diversified program of lectures, workshops, performances, concerts and exhibitions.

The German Entrepreneur Award is Germany’s most prestigious accolade for business success. The award is presented to entrepreneurs who have excelled at starting up new businesses and creating new and sustainable business ideas. The aim of the award is to foster a positive entrepreneurial environment in Germany and encourage people to go into business. The German Entrepreneur Award is conferred annually in four categories for Startups, Rising Stars, Lifetime Achievement and Students, thus recognizing entrepreneurial role models with companies in various phases – ranging from student business games to a life's work. There is also a Special Award for exceptional entrepreneurial achievement. The German Entrepreneur Award is presented by the partner organizations Stern magazine, ZDF, Sparkassen and Porsche, who have been committed to promoting entrepreneurship and the start-up culture since 1997. Porsche started supporting the German Entrepreneur Award in 2007. The initiative is also supported by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy and other renowned sponsors.

Metzler’s Endowed Guest Professorship for International Finance

While the Goethe University was in the process of realigning its Department of Economics and Business Administration in the 1990s, Metzler Bank initiated (in 1992) an Endowed Guest Professorship for International Finance designed to complement the university's courses in the fields of investment banking, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, insurance, securities and capital market analysis. This initiative was conceived as an exchange program between professors at the Wharton School in Philadelphia, one of the world’s leading business schools, and Goethe University in Frankfurt. It allows professors from the Wharton School to teach and do research in Frankfurt while Frankfurt’s professors can do research at Wharton. Numerous renowned scientists have already accepted the offer to come to Frankfurt and several excellent cooperative research projects as well as a large network have been the result. Thanks to Metzler’s Endowed Guest Professorship, among other things, Goethe University’s Finance Department is now among the best in all of Europe.

On the occasion of Goethe University’s 100-year anniversary in 2014, Metzler initiated the endowed guest professorship “Financial History“ together with the Edmond de Rothschild Group. Cooperation partners are the LOEWE Centre SAFE in the House of Finance and the Institute for Banking and Financial History. Due to its own history stretching across centuries, Metzler knows how important banking history research is. The global financial and debt crisis has clearly confirmed this while other models and theories have failed. A look into history can help us find better explanations and solutions to today’s problems and make fewer mistakes in future crises. Previous guest professors have included Benjamin Friedman from Harvard University (2015), Caroline Fohlin from Emory University Atlanta (2016), Hans-Joachim Voth from Zurich University (2017) and Harold James from Princeton University (2018). This year, Barry Eichengreen from the University of California at Berkeley is guest professor. 2020 Catherine Schenk, University of Oxford, will come to Frankfurt In 2018, Metzler Bank and the Friedrich Flick Foundation began financing the professorship.