Since 2021, he is retired (professor emeritus) and freelances occasionally as a speaker and research, educational, and strategic consultant for commercial and non-commercial organisations.
Born in Berlin (West) Germany in 1959, he moved to India in 1965 where he lived till 1977 after graduating from the Frank Anthony Public School, New Delhi.
On his return to Germany in 1977, he received his Abitur from the Weidig Gymnasium, Butzbach, Hesse before taking up his medical training at the Free University of Berlin from which he graduated in 1986.
[1] In 2007 he was awarded the Alberta Health Services endowed chair in Obesity Research and Management and appointed Professor of Medicine at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, where he is also currently the medical director of the Edmonton Region Bariatric Program.
He is also a founding member and current president of the Canadian Association of Bariatric Physicians and Surgeons.