Excellence.
We strive to be quality-and efficiency-leader in the domain of quantitative and technology-driven consulting.
We believe that quality consulting must incorporate the know-how of practitioners who intimately know market and products – and have created, traded, and risk-managed them.
Experience.
Passion.
We believe that you need to enjoy what you are doing and be passionate about it to truly deliver great results.
Management Team
Our management team has many years of experience in trading complex financial and energy derivatives, in risk management and risk modelling, in data analytics, and in implementing data architectures.
Prof. Dr. Christian Menn
Christian is managing partner at RIVACON and one of the co-founders. Christian previously worked in equity derivatives trading at Sal. Oppenheim Jr. & Cie and DZ BANK – first as a model developer and later as a trader for structured equity correlation and index products.
After studying business mathematics at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) and earning his doctorate at the Faculty of Economics, Christian spent 18 months at Cornell University as a research assistant and lecturer in financial engineering. In 2013, he was appointed professor of Quantitative Methods at the Faculty of Economics at Mainz University of Applied Sciences.
Gunnar Salentin
Gunnar has worked for RIVACON since 2017, as Managing Director since 2022, and has more than 20 years of professional experience. He is responsible for projects mainly in the context of market data, the development and validation of valuation and risk models, especially in the field of counterparty risks, as well as in the regulatory context. Previously, he worked as a senior quantitative analyst in risk controlling at WGZ BANK and as a manager in Audit and Financial Risk Management at KPMG, including several years in Spain and the People’s Republic of China.
After studying mathematics and business administration at RWTH Aachen University with a focus on statistics and operational research, Gunnar deepened his education by completing the CFA curriculum and a master’s degree in quantitative finance at Afi Escuela de Finanzas, Madrid.
Dr. Tobias Pfingsten
Tobias has been working for RIVACON as Managing Director since 2025. With over 18 years of experience in the energy sector and in strategy consulting, he is primarily responsible for projects in the energy industry and energy trading.
His project experience covers topics along the entire value chain in energy trading – with a focus on processes and trading systems (ETRM), hedge strategies as well as the evaluation and optimisation of flexible assets or contracts.
Tobias worked for several years at STEAG Iqony as Head of Energy Trading and Head of the Quantitative Valuation team. Prior to that, he worked as an expert in energy supply and commodity trading for the Boston Consulting Group and as an asset manager for RWE Supply & Trading. After graduating in physics, he completed his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and Robert Bosch GmbH on the application of machine learning in industrial production in Tübingen and Stuttgart until 2003.
