Erck Rickmers

In 2016 Rickmers established the International Foundation for the Humanities and Social Change. The foundation supports research centers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, as well as the University of Cambridge and the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Rickmers is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). At the 2011 Hamburg state election, he became a member of the Hamburg Parliament. As a member of the Hamburg Parliament, Rickmers chaired the committee on economics, innovation, and media and was a member of both the budget committee and the committee on public enterprises. Later in 2013 he quit the politics.

In 1992 Rickmers co-founded the Hamburg-based investment company Nordcapital and became its sole shareholder in 1996. In 1998 he established the shipping company E.R. Schiffahrt. In 2008 Rickmers merged his assets under the umbrella of E.R. Capital Holding. Rickmers selected as a chairman of the group in 2010.

Erck Rickmers (born 29 April 1964 in Bremerhaven) is a German businessman and politician of SPD (Social Democratic Party). He was a MP from 2011 to 2012.

Erck Rickmers was born and grew up in Bremerhaven. He comes from the Rickmers family of entrepreneurs in Bremerhaven, whose founder, Rickmer Clasen Rickmers, founded the Rickmers shipyard in Bremerhaven in 1834. He did his schooling from Stiftung Louisenlund in Schleswig-Holstein. After receiving his Abitur certificate and completing his military service with the German Air Force, he qualified as a shipping merchant following an apprenticeship with the Hamburg shipping company Ernst Russ. Among other positions, Rickmers subsequently worked as a ship broker at Harper Petersen & Co. in London. Rickmers attended a graduate program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, completing an M.A. degree in Religious Studies from 2015 to 2017.