Achim Weick

Founder & CEO EQS Group

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Achim Weick founded EQS Group in Munich in 2000 and has run it for more than a quarter of a century, building it into one of Europe’s leading RegTech companies. EQS sits at the point where corporate obligation meets software: regulatory disclosure and ad-hoc announcements, investor relations communications, whistleblowing and ethics reporting, policy and disclosure management, and the compliance workflows that European and increasingly global companies are legally required to operate. More than 10,000 companies use it, served by around 550 staff. Weick’s own background is the reason the company exists in the form it does — he came from institutional equity sales and capital markets consulting, and holds a Certified European Financial Analyst qualification, so EQS was built by someone who understood the disclosure obligation from the issuer’s side before there was software for it. In February 2024 he took the company private in partnership with Thoma Bravo, reinvesting part of his own holding rather than exiting, and has since used the new ownership to make the largest acquisition in the company’s history.

Career Highlights

• Founded EQS Group in Munich in 2000 and has served on its board since 1 February 2000.
• Built EQS into a leading European provider of regulatory disclosure, compliance and investor-relations software, serving more than 10,000 companies with around 550 staff.
• Set up EQS Group Inc. in New York between 2016 and 2017, establishing the US presence.
• Took EQS private with Thoma Bravo in a transaction that closed on 2 February 2024 at approximately 98% of share capital, partially reinvesting his own shareholding and remaining CEO.
• Acquired OneTrust’s ethics and compliance business division, including the Convercent platform and its 1,000-plus customers, announced 10 December 2024.
• Co-founded CMC Capital Markets Consulting AG in Munich in 1998 and sat on its executive management board until 2000.
• Member of the Exchange Council of the Munich Stock Exchange since 2016.
• Head of the Supervisory Board of Waag & Zuebert Value AG, Nuremberg, since 2012.

Professional Journey

Weick, born in 1968, began not at university but in a bank: an apprenticeship at Commerzbank in Villingen from 1989 to 1991. He then read Business Administration at the University of Augsburg from 1991 to 1996, taking a Dipl.-Kfm., while simultaneously completing an international trainee programme at Commerzbank in Stuttgart across the same years. The combination of a formal commercial degree and continuous practical banking experience is a characteristically German path, and it left him with both the analytical training and the institutional knowledge that the next stage required.

From 1997 to 1998 he worked in institutional equities sales at HypoVereinsbank in Munich, selling German equities to professional investors — the side of the market that consumes corporate disclosure and knows exactly how badly it is usually delivered. In the same period he qualified as a Certified European Financial Analyst through the DVFA in Frankfurt am Main.

In 1998 he co-founded CMC Capital Markets Consulting AG in Munich and joined its executive management board, advising companies on their capital markets communication. This was the height of the Neuer Markt era, when a generation of German companies listed and abruptly acquired disclosure obligations they had no infrastructure to meet. Working on that problem as a consultant showed him its shape, and showed him that consulting was the wrong instrument for it: the requirement was recurring, rule-driven and identical across hundreds of issuers, which makes it a software problem rather than an advisory one.

He founded EQS Group in Munich in 2000 and has been on its board since 1 February that year. The initial product served regulatory disclosure and investor relations — getting mandatory announcements to the right regulators, news services and investors, with the audit trail that regulators require. Over the following two decades the company expanded along the compliance obligation itself as European regulation grew: whistleblowing systems, policy management, disclosure management, and the analytics and reporting that sit on top of them. That expansion turned a disclosure utility into a compliance platform, and the EU Whistleblower Directive in particular created a mandatory market across every member state. Between 2016 and 2017 Weick established EQS Group Inc. in New York, opening the American market, and in 2016 he joined the Exchange Council of the Munich Stock Exchange; he has chaired the supervisory board of Waag & Zuebert Value AG in Nuremberg since 2012.

The decisive corporate event came in late 2023, when EQS and Thoma Bravo entered an investment agreement, and it closed on 2 February 2024 with Thoma Bravo holding approximately 98% of the share capital and delisting expected in the second quarter. What distinguishes this from a conventional founder exit is that Weick partially reinvested his own shares alongside Thoma Bravo and stayed on as CEO — he swapped a public listing for a private-equity partner and more capital while keeping both his stake and his job. The logic showed within the year. On 10 December 2024 EQS Group announced the acquisition of OneTrust’s entire ethics and compliance business division, including the Convercent platform and its more than 1,000 customers, retaining all of the acquired staff across the United States, India, the United Kingdom and Spain. It was a substantial step into the American market that the 2016 New York office had only begun, and it consolidated two of the larger ethics and compliance platforms into one. Weick’s framing of it was about product rather than scale: building a seamless compliance management system for customers. EQS Group today serves more than 10,000 companies worldwide with approximately 550 employees.

Education

DVFA, Frankfurt am Main

Certified European Financial Analyst (CEFA), 1997-1998

University of Augsburg

Dipl.-Kfm., Business Administration, 1991-1996

Commerzbank Stuttgart

International Trainee programme, 1991-1996

Commerzbank Villingen

Banking apprenticeship, 1989-1991