That was 2020:

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.

Alexander Birken, born in Hamburg in 1964, has been CEO of the Otto Group since the beginning of 2017. Birken began his career at Philips Medical Systems after studying business administration. In 1991, he moved to Otto, where he initially worked in controlling, and from 1999 onwards he was head of the group's worldwide investment controlling. From 2002 to 2004, he was COO of the Spiegel Group mail-order company in Chicago, before becoming a member of the Otto Executive Board in 2005. As CEO, he wants to establish the family company Otto as the German alternative to Amazon - and in return, he is cancelling what has fallen out of time: the printed Otto catalog, actually almost a piece of German cultural heritage, was discontinued under his aegis. The future is digital, and Alexander Birken knows no place for sentimentality.

The doctor with two doctorates and a passionate tennis player decided in 2009 to bring the expensive high-speed gene analysis from the universities into her own company: Together with her husband Dirk, she founded CeGaT, a company that examines all human genes, enabling rapid diagnoses and the precise treatment of many tumour diseases. She now has 230 employees and was awarded the EU Innovation Prize for Women 2014 by the EU Commission.

Friedrich von Bohlen comes from the Krupp dynasty. He studied biochemistry and received his doctorate in neurobiology. He has co-founded several biotechnology companies, including Lion Bioscience and Molecular Health, and in 2005 the investment company Dievini Hopp Biotech Holding. Their most valuable investment is the Tübingen-based company Curevac, which is working on a corona vaccine.

Sophie Boissard sees herself as a companion in the life of the modern man. A graduate of the University of Ena, she has worked for French politicians, then for the SNCF railway group. Since 2016, she has been head of the nursing home operator Korian. This is perhaps the most difficult task, because it is about the last stage of a person's life. She knows about the bad image of the industry. She wants to change that.

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.

Rolf Buch is the boss of Germany's largest landlord Vonovia. Under Buch, the former German Annington has taken over competitors, hatched new building plans, expanded abroad and renovated tens of thousands of apartments. But regular rent increases and increases in value also cause resentment among politicians and tenants' associations. Prior to his move to the real estate industry in 2013, Buch, who studied mechanical engineering, made a career at Bertelsmann.

Karina Buschsieweke helps companies to work more efficiently. In 2016, the economist founded the software specialist Lana Lab and is now its managing director. Through data-based insights, companies there try to make faster. She took her first career steps in the automotive industry as a technology analyst.

born in 1967, is Board Member for Legal and Corporate Affairs and thus the Chief Legal Officer of Telefónica Germany. In addition to areas such as compliance or the company's regulatory work, her responsibilities also include relations with authorities and government agencies. She studied in Saarbrücken and took her second state examination at the Zweibrücken/Pfalz Higher Regional Court.

Michael Diederich, born in 1965, has been spokesman of the board of Hypo-Vereinsbank, a subsidiary of the Italian Unicredit Group, since January 2018. Prior to that, he was responsible for the investment banking division of the bank. His conviction is that investment banking must first and foremost serve corporate customers. Diederich is regarded as a banker of modern character: approachable, conscientious, respectful.

Lars Dittrich, born in 1974, comes from Hennigsdorf near Berlin and initially studied business administration in Berlin, but gave up his studies to found a telecommunications company that built up a chain of mobile phone shops throughout Germany. In 2007 he sold the company to the financial investor Permira. Since then, he has been an investor and, among other things, holds a stake in the film production company Mythos Film ("The Collini Case", "He's Back").

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.

Karen Donfried is President of the German Marshall Fund, one of the major American think tanks dealing with foreign and security policy issues with a focus on transatlantic relations. Most recently, she was Senior Director responsible for Europe in the US National Security Council during Barack Obama's presidency. Before the presidential election, Donfried co-chaired a task force to rebuild US-European relations.

Sabine Eckhardt, born in 1972, is one of the most influential female managers in Germany. Since May 2020, she has been CEO for Central Europe at the international real estate group JLL, which employs 93,000 people. She studied German language and literature and philosophy and previously worked for the media group ProSiebenSat.1 for 14 years, where she was one of the few female members of the executive board of a DAX-listed company. She is regarded as a sales and marketing specialist and has extensive experience in the digital transformation of companies.

Martin Eisenhut, born in 1963, finds Digitalization changes everything and at the same time offers huge opportunities. Nevertheless, it must not be an end in itself and must offer added value. Since the end of 2016, Eisenhut, who holds a doctorate in natural sciences, has been Managing Director at Kearney, responsible for business in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. He looks back on almost 25 years in the consulting business and has held positions at Roland Berger, Oliver Wyman and Deloitte.

Holger Engelmann, who studied business administration and was head of Webasto, suddenly became a well-known crisis manager overnight at the beginning of the year. That was in January, when a Chinese employee came to the headquarters of the automotive supplier in Stockdorf near Munich for a few days. That the colleague had brought the corona virus with her was only clear a few days later when the woman - back in China - tested positive. During her visit to Bavaria, colleagues were infected, and Webasto suddenly became a company known throughout Germany. And Engelmann reacted. He set up a crisis management team, organized coronavirus tests and ordered the 1000 employees at the headquarters to have a home office for a limited time.

He would love to fly into space, but so far it has not turned out: "When commercial projects such as Virgin Galactic are mature," said Marco Fuchs, born in 1962, once the SZ, "then I would consider such a flight. So far, the head of the Bremen-based space company has come to an end at the launch pad. At best, he can only observe the rockets during launch when one of his satellites is launched into space. The listed family company has been building space components and satellites since 1985, initially for the German space laboratory Spacelab, later weather, spy and Galileo navigation satellites. Now Fuchs also has lunar ambitions, with OHB involved in studies for the Lunar Gateway and life-support systems on the moon.

Gregor Gysi, born in Berlin in 1948, is still one of the country's best-known left-wing politicians - and one of the most entertaining speakers in the entire Bundestag, of which he has been a member since 1990 except for a three-year break. Apart from politics, Gysi is a lawyer - but he can also point to his GDR training as a skilled worker in cattle breeding.

Ingrid Hengster, born in Linz in 1961, has been a member of the Board of Managing Directors of the federal development bank KfW since 2014. There, the doctor of law is currently responsible for Corona Aid, so she must ensure that state support for companies reaches its goal quickly and without complications. Previously, Hengster had management responsibility at various foreign banks, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland and ABN Amro. Recently, she has also been representing the federal government on the supervisory board of Deutsche Bahn.

Born in 1965, recently took over the newly created position of Managing Director for the Germany, Austria and Switzerland region at cloud software provider Salesforce. The business administration graduate comes from competitor SAP, where he was most recently responsible for the company's worldwide business with corporate planning software. Prior to that, he held other management positions at the Wallstadt-based company.

Felix Hufeld, born 1961 in Mainz, is Germany's chief financial supervisor. As President of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), he has been overseeing Germany's financial institutions since 2015. Prior to this, Hufeld studied law and worked as a consultant, among other things. From 2013 he was responsible for insurance at the BaFin, and since 2015 he has been President of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority.

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".

Wolfgang Ischinger is a German lawyer and diplomat. He was born in 1946 near Stuttgart. Ischinger studied law and contemporary history, among other things. In 1998 he became State Secretary in the Foreign Office. From 2001 to 2006 he was ambassador in Washington. Since 2008 Ischinger has been Chairman of the Munich Security Conference.

born in 1970, has been managing the business of the Google internet group in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since May 2013. Prior to that, the business economist worked for ten years in various functions at the auction platform Ebay. Among other things, he helped to establish the company in Europe in the 2000s. Justus began his career as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group.

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.

born 1981, is co-founder of the German technology manufacturer Myra Security. Since 2013, the company has been using its services to protect websites from attacks from the Internet. Among its customers are the car rental company Sixt and the mail order company Baur. Politicians also rely on Kaffsack's services: He protects the websites of the German government and took care of the security of the online presence at the G7 summit in Elmau. In his job, Kaffsack is on the move globally, from Silicon Valley to London.

Fabian Kienbaum, born in 1984, has been at the head of the personnel consultancy Kienbaum Consultants for four years. He studied business administration and then moved to the European Business School in Paris. After starting his career in a London management consultancy, he joined the Cologne-based family business in his late twenties.

Julia Klöckner is Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture. The fact that the CDU politician grew up in a winery near Bad Kreuznach has shaped her political career. When she first moved into the Bundestag in 2002, her topics were already then: consumer protection, food and agriculture. In 2009 she became parliamentary state secretary in the responsible ministry and after her election defeat in 2016 as the top candidate of the CDU in Rhineland-Palatinate in March 2018 she finally became minister in the same house.

How do companies manage to get out of crises? Nils Kuhlwein von Rathenow, born in 1968, has been advising companies for more than 20 years. His focus is on transformation and restructuring processes. The business administration graduate started his career with an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk at Siemens. He then worked as an auditor and consultant for KPMG, Roland Berger and McKinsey. He has been a partner at Kearney since 2018, where he is responsible for the restructuring division.

She comes from a working-class family, first studied social work, then law, and is one of the best-known and most prominent politicians of the Greens: Renate Künast. Born in Recklinghausen in 1955, she was the first female minister in 2001 to campaign for consumer protection. Currently, the long-time member of the Bundestag is fighting against insults and hate speech on the net in German courts.

Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia and candidate for the presidency of the CDU. Born in 1961, he is considered a close confidant of Chancellor Angela Merkel. If he wins the race for the CDU presidency, he could be nominated as the Union's candidate for chancellor and thus for her succession. Laschet leads a black-yellow coalition in Düsseldorf. He studied law and worked as a journalist. In 1979 he joined the CDU, in 2012 he became chairman of the NRW-CDU. Laschet was a member of the Bundestag and the European Parliament as well as state minister in NRW. Since 2017 he has been head of the state government.

How is our mobility changing? What will transport of the future look like? These are the questions that Barbara Lenz, born in 1955, deals with at the German Aerospace Center. There she heads the Institute for Transport Research. Lenz is also Professor of Transport Geography at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Bruno Le Maire, born in 1969, is to pull the cart out of the mire for France. The Minister of Finance and Economy is fighting the Corona recession with hundreds of billions. At the same time, the expert on Germany is a key player in the European reform agenda of President Emmanuel Macron. He is also a successful novelist.

Fabio De Masi, born in 1980, deputy chairman of the parliamentary group Die Linke, took the odd career path. First he worked in construction, later in a call center and as a toilet cleaner, and studied economics. In politics, he is concerned with the interests of the little people. Sometimes he thinks of his Italian grandfather: he fought as a partisan against the fascists.

He counters the dusty image of a tax consultant and auditor with an electric guitar of the Squier brand. Robert Mayr, born in Munich in 1966, has a degree in business administration, received his doctorate, worked at the Berlin Treuhandanstalt and later at the auditing firm Deloitte.. In the meantime, however, the hobby musician, who also jams with his employees from time to time, lives in Nuremberg: Since 2016 he has been CEO of the software house and IT service provider DATEV.

She has been ruling Germany since 2005: first as chancellor of a grand coalition, then as chancellor of a fairly small coalition with the FDP, and since 2013 again as head of a grand coalition. She has developed from a domestic reformer to the most important head of government in Europe: respected by many abroad, but also attacked by many in the euro and refugee crisis.

The man, born in 1987, has a big name. He stands for washing machines and steam cookers. But he does not want to rest on his big name. He does his own thing. Since 2015 he is Partner of the venture capitalist e.ventures. And since the end of 2019 he has been president of the Federal Association of German Start-ups.

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.

Verena Pausder, born in 1979, is very much in the news. She has just published a new book in which she makes a strong commitment to education and equal opportunities in Germany and calls for better digital equipment in schools. Pausder, who lives with her family in Berlin, has founded several companies, including Fox & Sheep, a provider of apps and online games for children, the majority of which she has sold to the toy manufacturer Haba. Most recently, she was elected to the supervisory board of Comdirect.

Andrea Pfundmeier likes to keep secrets. She is co-founder of the Augsburg-based company Secomba. Her software Boxcryptor encrypts data for the cloud. She recommends that founders work in networks. The experience of others can help in difficult situations.

Vitaly Ponomarev, born in Kazakhstan in 1988, founded the technology company WayRay in 2012, one of the most valuable Swiss start-ups. The company develops and produces holographic augmented reality head-up display technologies. Using a laser system, the driver can see information on the windshield, navigation instructions are placed directly on the road. The CEO graduated from Harvard Business School in 2019. With his start-up, Ponomarev wants to revolutionise the automotive world.

Tim Raue, born in 1974, is regarded as Germany's most successful top chef: he runs two Michelin-starred restaurants and is the only one who made it onto the list of the 50 best restaurants in the world with a German restaurant last year. Rough start was hard to imagine: Growing up in poor conditions in Berlin-Kreuzberg, he joined a gang as a teenager and came to the kitchen more or less by chance. There, however, things quickly went uphill for him: chef at 23, "Chef of the Year" and first Michelin star at 33, his own restaurant at 36. The Corona crisis also hit the top restaurateur hard, however, and in the meantime all of his now ten restaurants were closed. Only in the "Tim Raue" they cooked - to take away.

Carla Reemtsma, born in 1998, is responsible for press relations at Fridays for Future Germany. In addition to her commitment to climate protection, she is a youth ambassador for the development aid organization One. After graduating from high school in 2015, she began studying politics and economics in Münster. She describes herself as an antifascist and feminist.

Franziska Reh studied Business Administration and Global Business & Sustainability. In 2019 she founded the Startup Unconventional Capital (Uncap) with the aim to facilitate investments in developing countries. Before that she worked for Deutsche Bank, among others.

The physician, born in 1959, likes ducks. They belong to the few animals that can only walk forward. That is also a good motto for life, he says. A red duck is the company mascot. He wanted something haptic because genetics is so abstract for many people. Centogene specializes in rare genetic diseases.

For the physician, born in 1965, the search for a vaccine against the coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 is not a race. In order to supply the world, it will need many suppliers. It is quite possible that BioNTech will be one of the first. The vaccine is only one thing. He wants to revolutionize the way cancer is treated.

Carola von Schmettow, born 1964 in Düsseldorf, is spokeswoman of the board of directors of HSBC Trinkaus, the German HSBC division. She studied mathematics and music at the same time, but decided against an artistic career after her diploma. In 1992 she began her career in the world of finance, and since 2015 she has been managing the business of HSBC Trinkaus.

In August, SPD politician Olaf Scholz (born in 1958) was nominated by his party as candidate for chancellor in the 2021 federal elections. He is currently Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister of Finance in Angela Merkel's fourth cabinet. He already knows the Chancellor from the years 2007 to 2009, when he was Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs. In between, from 2011 to March 2018, he ruled as mayor in Hamburg. Scholz is considered a pragmatic SPD politician, for example, he helped former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to push through the controversial Hartz IV reforms.

Nico Schork, born 1994 in Mosbach. In 2012 he produced with his school friend Alexander Giesecke under the name TheSimpleMaths educational videos, which should make maths cool and understandable. After graduating from high school in 2013, Schork began studying media informatics in Munich, where he and Giesecke built up the company that emerged from TheSimpleMaths in 2015: simpleclub GmbH. In 2016 a digital learning snare was developed, which was supplemented by further subjects. Today, the app is considered the most popular learning gnome among pupils in Germany with more than one million users per month.

Joachim von Schorlemer, born in 1957, has been on the board of ING in Germany since 2016, where he expanded the Dutch bank's German corporate client business. Prior to this, Schorlemer worked for various other foreign banks: from 2004 to 2012 he was the German head of the major French bank BNP Paribas; from 2013 to 2015 he headed the corporate banking business of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. From 1979 to 1982 Schorlemer studied business administration in Hamburg.

Born in 1962, joined the cloud market leader Salesforce in 2007 after working for Boole and Babbage, Veritas Software and Symantec. He is now Executive Vice President Sales and Country Leader Germany and Austria. Schreiner also supports various projects in the fields of education and integration and is specifically committed to improving education in MINT subjects.

Stefan Schulte, born in 1960, has been CEO of the airport operator Fraport since 2009. He steered the company through the global financial crisis, but now COVID-19 is forcing him to make much more far-reaching cuts. After years of boom, he has to recalibrate his company for a long lean period.

Christian Seifert, born in 1969, has been head of the German Football League (DFL), in which the soccer clubs of the first and second national leagues are organized, since 2005. The man from Rastatt first studied communication science, marketing and sociology and then worked for the Kirch Group and for Karstadt-Quelle. He joined DFL in 2005. Among other things, he succeeded in significantly increasing the income from the sale of television rights. In the Corona epidemic, the Bundesliga was one of the first leagues to resume playing after the lockdown - thanks mainly to the crisis management of Seifert, who is a fan of Borussia Mönchengladbach. Many other countries followed the concept of the DFL.

From burger roaster to millionaire. What seems like a story of the American Dream has become reality for Sebastian Siemiatkowski, born in 1981. While still a student and working at Burger King, he founded the start-up company Klarna. Today, the Swedish payment service provider is the most valuable financial start-up in Europe with around 9 billion euros.

When Markus Söder joined the CSU in 1983 at the age of 16, he hung a poster of Franz Josef Strauss over his bed at home in Nuremberg. At 27 he moved into the Bavarian State Parliament, at 36 he became CSU Secretary General, and at 40 he became State Minister; first for European Affairs, then for Environment and Health and finally for Finance. In March 2018, Söder - like his idol Strauß - rose to the position of Bavarian Minister President. After the state elections in autumn, he formed a coalition with the free voters. Since the beginning of 2019, Söder has also been chairman of the CSU. The Corona crisis at the latest has made him an actor in federal politics.

Oliver Steil has been the head of TeamViewer since 2018. The German tech company specializes in software that can be used to network machines of all kinds and control them remotely. For years, the turnover and profit of the Göppingen-based company has been increasing regularly. In September 2019, TeamViewer celebrated its successful IPO on the German Stock Market in Frankfurt.

Markus Steilemann has been head of Covestro since 2018. The chemist wants to make the plastics company less dependent on oil, recycle more plastic, process CO2 and use green electricity. It's still a long way off: 99 percent of production is still based on oil. Steilemann made a career at Bayer and lived in China for several years. When the company spun off its plastics operations, the Rhinelander joined the Board of Management of the new Covestro.

Stephan Sturm began his career as a consultant at McKinsey. Then he worked as an investment banker for 13 years. In 2005, he was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Fresenius, and in the summer of 2016 he became Chairman of the Management Board. He is also and regularly a football fan at Eintracht Frankfurt matches.

Frans Timmermans is Executive Vice-President of the EU Commission responsible for climate protection and the Green Deal. Before the Dutchman was the top candidate of the European Social Democrats in the 2019 European elections, he was responsible for cutting red tape and the rule of law as deputy to Jean-Claude Juncker. Before that he was foreign minister.

Philipp Welte, born in 1962, did an internship at the Ulmer Südwest Presse, then studied politics and cultural sciences in Tübingen and worked as a journalist before becoming a manager at the Burda Group. Welte has been a member of the Management Board of Hubert Burda Media since 2008 and is primarily responsible for the large national and international magazine business. He is also Vice President of the Association of German Magazine Publishers.

Katharina Witt, born 1965, is a former German figure skater. In the course of her career, she has been Olympic champion twice and is a multiple world champion. After her career ended, Witt began a career as an actress and presenter. With her foundation of the same name, she particularly supports children in the fields of disaster relief, medical care and sports promotion.

Oliver Zipse, born in 1964, has spent his entire professional life at BMW. So he knows the company very well, which he has been managing there since summer 2019 as Chairman of the Board of Management - and unlike some of his colleagues in the industry, Zipse does not make loud announcements. His management style is binding, albeit tough, and the BMW boss sees himself as a team player. This is how he wants to lead the Munich car manufacturer into the age of modern mobility: calmly, disciplined and with the greatest possible efficiency.

The doctor with two doctorates and a passionate tennis player decided in 2009 to bring the expensive high-speed gene analysis from the universities into her own company: Together with her husband Dirk, she founded CeGaT, a company that examines all human genes, enabling rapid diagnoses and the precise treatment of many tumour diseases. She now has 230 employees and was awarded the EU Innovation Prize for Women 2014 by the EU Commission.

Laura Gehlhaar, born in Düsseldorf in 1983, does not feel impaired by her disability - but by people who treat her disparagingly. She studied social education and psychology. In her blog "Frau Gehlhaar" she writes about life in the big city and wheelchair use. She also gives lectures on inclusion.

Lea Hampel's business editorial team is primarily concerned with alternative economic and business models, new work topics and sustainability. Studied social and economic history and intercultural communication, training at the German School of Journalism, working in Jerusalem, Paris and Berlin, among other places. Otherwise on the Web under leahampel.de.

Anna-Maria Karl, born in 1965, is well versed in the requirements for managers. With a doctorate in law, she worked for Daimler AG for 25 years, most recently as Head of "Global Talent Sourcing". At the beginning of 2020, she moved to the personnel and management consultancy Kienbaum, where she is now looking for management personnel for companies as "Director Executive Search".

born 1981, is co-founder of the German technology manufacturer Myra Security. Since 2013, the company has been using its services to protect websites from attacks from the Internet. Among its customers are the car rental company Sixt and the mail order company Baur. Politicians also rely on Kaffsack's services: He protects the websites of the German government and took care of the security of the online presence at the G7 summit in Elmau. In his job, Kaffsack is on the move globally, from Silicon Valley to London.

Astrid Latzel already wanted to become a Partner in an international top management consultancy during her business studies in Bayreuth. At Kearney, the mother of two heads the Berlin office and, as Partner and Managing Director, is responsible for the private equity division for Central Europe.

Jürgen von der Lehr, born in 1972, has been working for ING, one of Germany's best-known direct banks, since 2018. As Head of Strategy & Business Development, the trained banker and business graduate has been responsible for the bank's cooperation with Fintechs and the further development of innovations since this year. Von der Lehr already knows how the banking business works from his previous jobs, including as a management consultant and his time at Deutsche Bank.

Klaus Müller, born in 1971, is Germany's highest ranking consumer protectionist. He has been head of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations since 2014. The graduate economist had made a career in politics before moving to consumer protection. Müller sat for the Greens in the Bundestag and was the parliamentary group's financial policy spokesman. In 2000, he moved to Schleswig-Holstein as Minister of the Environment and Agriculture. From 2006 to 2014, he was chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice centre.

Verena Pausder, born in 1979, is very much in the news. She has just published a new book in which she makes a strong commitment to education and equal opportunities in Germany and calls for better digital equipment in schools. Pausder, who lives with her family in Berlin, has founded several companies, including Fox & Sheep, a provider of apps and online games for children, the majority of which she has sold to the toy manufacturer Haba. Most recently, she was elected to the supervisory board of Comdirect.

Carla Reemtsma, born in 1998, is responsible for press relations at Fridays for Future Germany. In addition to her commitment to climate protection, she is a youth ambassador for the development aid organization One. After graduating from high school in 2015, she began studying politics and economics in Münster. She describes herself as an antifascist and feminist.

Born in 1968, has one doctorate in mathematics. Since 1996 he has been working in the IT industry. He is a member of the German management of Atos and is responsible for topics such as automation, artificial intelligence and cloud at the French IT group. Schaumburg is also a member of the Atos Scientific Community.

Philipp Welte, born in 1962, did an internship at the Ulmer Südwest Presse, then studied politics and cultural sciences in Tübingen and worked as a journalist before becoming a manager at the Burda Group. Welte has been a member of the Management Board of Hubert Burda Media since 2008 and is primarily responsible for the large national and international magazine business. He is also Vice President of the Association of German Magazine Publishers.

Marc Beise, born in Mainz in 1959, has been working for the Süddeutsche Zeitung since 1999, initially as deputy head of the business editorial department. In 2007 he became its head. He manages the department together with Ulrich Schäfer. He learned journalism at the Offenbach-Post, where his last position was head of the politics, economics and news department. He later wrote for the Handelsblatt for four years, most recently as head of the Economic Policy department. He studied law and economics in Frankfurt, Lausanne and Tübingen and received his doctorate on the World Trade Organization. He is the author of five economics books. His most recent publication is "Deutschland digital - Unsere Antwort auf das Silicon Valley" (2016).

Bastian Brinkmann is deputy head of the business editorial department of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. He was born in 1988 in NRW, grew up near Berlin, and has worked in Dublin and Brussels. Cologne School of Journalism. Studied economics and political science in Cologne and South Korea.

Caspar Busse, born in 1966, has been writing for the Süddeutsche Zeitung since 2005, both on economic and media topics. He also coordinates the SZ's reporting on companies, both large and small. Prior to that, he worked for the Handelsblatt for more than ten years, including as a correspondent in Berlin and as office manager in Munich. After graduating in economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, he completed journalistic training at the Georg-von-Holtzbrinck-School for Business Journalists in Düsseldorf.

The mechanical engineer (born 1965 in Freiberg, Saxony) was so fascinated by the spirit of social change after the fall of the Berlin Wall that she turned to journalism. She described the changes in the East German economy for all-German specialist publishers. After the turn of the millennium, she worked for Die Zeit, Der Spiegel and the Financial Times.

Christoph Giesen, born in Berlin in 1983, is the Süddeutsche Zeitung's correspondent in China and reports from Beijing on the economy of the People's Republic. From 2012 to 2016 he was a member of the SZ-Wirtschaftsredaktion in Munich and contributed to the international revelations Offshore-Leaks, Lux-Leaks, Swiss-Leaks and the Panama Papers. Prior to his traineeship at the SZ, he studied journalism, political science and a subject called "China in Comparative Perspective" in Leipzig, London and Shanghai. For his work he has been awarded the Wächterpreis der deutschen Tagespresse and the Helmut Schmidt Journalistenpreis.

Wolfgang Krach, born 1963 in Regensburg, began his journalistic career as a volunteer and local editor at the "Donaukurier" in Ingolstadt. After studying philosophy at the University of Philosophy in Munich, he was the regional political correspondent for the "Donaukurier" in Munich. In 1993 he became a political reporter for the "Stern", in 1997 he changed to the "SPIEGEL". There he was deputy head of the Berlin office, then head of the Germany department at the SPIEGEL headquarters in Hamburg. From there he moved to the SZ in Munich in 2003 as head of the newsdesk. In 2007 he was appointed deputy editor-in-chief. Since April 1, 2015 he has been editor-in-chief.

Stefan Kornelius has headed the foreign policy department of the Süddeutsche Zeitung since 2000. Before that, he worked as deputy head of the Berlin office and reported from Washington as a correspondent during the Clinton presidency. From 1991 to 1996, Kornelius was a correspondent in the Bonn office of the SZ, responsible for reporting on defense and security policy issues as well as on the CDU. Kornelius graduated from the Henri Nannen School of Journalism and studied at the University of Bonn and the London School of Economics. He is co-founder of the magazine Medium Magazin.

Henrike Roßbach, born in 1979, has been working for the Süddeutsche Zeitung since 2018. As a correspondent in the parliamentary office, she writes primarily about work and pensions, women's and family policy. Before that, she was correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Berlin for eight years, before that she was business editor and volunteer at the FAZ in Frankfurt. She studied economics at the University of Cologne, while at the same time attending the Cologne School of Journalism for Politics and Economics. During her studies she spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in the USA, in Boulder, Colorado.

Ulrich Schäfer, born 1967 in Telgte, has been working for the SZ since 2003, initially as deputy head of the parliamentary office in Berlin. From 2007 to 2010, he headed the economics editorial office together with Marc Beise, was then responsible for the regional editions of the SZ for three years and then returned to the economics editorial office as department head. From April 2019 to July 2020 he was head of news at SZ. Since mid-July 2020 he has been deputy editor-in-chief of the SZ. He learned journalism at the Münstersche Zeitung, later he worked for seven years as business editor for the SPIEGEL. He studied economics and is the author of three economics books. His most recent publication was "Deutschland digital - Unsere Antwort auf das Sillicon Valley" (2016).

Jörg Schmitt, born 1967 in Marburg, Hesse. Studied journalism, economic policy and law in Munich and has been working for over 20 years as an investigative journalist specializing in corruption and economic crime. First for "Stern", later for "manager magazin", from 2003 to 2020 for SPIEGEL. There he was a member of the investigative team and coordinator for investigative research of the news magazine until July 2019. Since May 2020, he has been editor-in-chief in the investigative department of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. He revealed numerous affairs in the fields of economics, finance, armaments, politics and sports. For his research, he has been awarded the Nannen Prize twice and the Otto Brenner Journalist Prize. Since 2010 he has been a lecturer for journalism at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.

Meike Schreiber, born in Karlsruhe in 1975, studied German, Romance languages and literature and economics in Lyon, Freiburg and Cologne, and then worked as a trainee at the Financial Times Deutschland. From 2003 until the end of the FTD in 2012, she worked there as an editor in the banking and finance department in Frankfurt. She then went into business for herself and founded the SchreiberDohms press office. Since 2015, she has been reporting on the Frankfurt financial center for the SZ as a banking correspondent.

Judith Wittwer is the first woman to head the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Since July 2020, she has headed the editorial office of Germany's largest subscribed daily newspaper together with Wolfgang Krach. Previously, the Swiss was editor-in-chief of the Zürcher Tages-Anzeiger. From 2011 to 2014 she worked as business editor for the Handelszeitung of the Axel Springer Verlag. Wittwer studied economics, law and political science (Master of International Affairs and Governance) at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and completed her diploma training at MAZ - Die Schweizer Journalistenschule. She is married and mother of two daughters.