SZ-Wirtschaftsgipfel

Simone Bagel-Trah, as head of the supervisory board, watches over Henkel, the parent company of brands such as Persil and Pritt. The great-great-granddaughter of founder Fritz Henkel, born in Düsseldorf, also represents, as Chairwoman of the Shareholders' Committee, the ramified Henkel family, which holds a good 61 percent of the Group's shares. In addition, the doctor of biology is co-founder of the small company Antiinfectives Intelligence in Rheinbach near Bonn, which researches and describes drugs.

Martin Brudermüller, born in Stuttgart in 1961, grew up in Karlsruhe. His mother was a housewife, his father a nuclear physicist. At home there was much discussion about natural sciences. Brudermüller wanted to become a surgeon for a while, but then decided to study chemistry. Even as a doctoral student he attended a holiday course for young scientists at BASF. He then applied there and worked his way up to the Board of Executive Directors, which he has chaired since May 2018.

Belgian environmental scientist Sandrine Dixson-Declève has been advising EU policy-makers and governments on climate change and sustainable growth for over 30 years. Since 2018, she has been Co-President of the international think tank Club of Rome, which presented the Climate Emergency Plan to the EU Parliament in 2018 and is committed to an environmental turnaround in the economy.

If you ask him how he prefers to drink his espresso, there is only one answer: rigorosamente without milk and sugar! Because, according to the manager (born in 1964) from Trieste, who is the third generation of the coffee dynasty, a good espresso must stand for itself - and feel "like a silk scarf between your fingers". Illy is worried about the future of his coffee beans because of climate change, and he has written about Italian politics. Title of the book that is supposed to give courage: "Italia Felix".

He has been CEO of Siemens since August 2013. The manager, who grew up in the Bavarian Forest as Josef Kaeser, joined the Munich-based company in 1980 and quickly made a career for himself. From 2006 he was Chief Financial Officer, then he inherited Peter Löscher at the top of the company. Since then, Kaeser has been rebuilding Siemens vigorously, travelling all over the world, meeting heads of state and important customers, and also making a name for himself with political statements. His management contract expires at the beginning of 2021.

Hildegard Müller, born in 1967, knows the interplay between business and politics better than anyone else. She was Chairwoman of the Junge Union, Minister of State in the Chancellor's Office under Angela Merkel, was responsible for the electricity networks at Innogy and now leads the VDA car lobby association with a steady hand. A woman among car guys - that's unusual too.

Already at her last job she achieved a turnaround that hardly anyone thought possible. With creativity and perseverance, she has brought Germany's largest public transport company, BVG, back into the heart of Berlin. At the beginning of the year, the former BVG boss (born in 1969) moved to the executive floor of Deutsche Bahn. And once again an extremely difficult task awaits her. The doctor of psychology has to restructure the problem division of Germany's largest state-owned company par excellence, the loss-making freight subsidiary DB Cargo. The former near-monopolist has now lost 40 percent of its market share to competitors. Nikutta's job at the railways is to put right little less than a disaster.