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Josef Ackermann
Chairman of the Management Board and
the Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank AG
Josef Ackermann, born on 7 February 1948 in the Swiss Canton of St. Gallen, is Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive Committee of Deutsche Bank. He studied economics and social sciences at the University of St. Gallen and in 1977, after obtaining his doctorate, joined Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (SKA), today’s Credit Suisse Group. In 1990 Ackermann was appointed to the Executive Board of SKA, becoming its President in 1993. In 1996 he joined the Management Board of Deutsche Bank, where he was responsible for the investment banking division. 2002 saw Josef Ackermann appointed Spokesman of the Board of Managing Directors and Chairman of the Group Executive Committee. He is a member of the Supervisory Board of Bayer AG, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Linde AG and Siemens AG. He also plays an active role in, among other things, the Initiative Finanzstandort Deutschland; he is Chairman of the Institute of International Finance and Vice-Chairman of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum.
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Hubertus Heil
Member of the German Bundestag and
General Secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SPD)
Born 3 November 1972 in Hildesheim; protestant; married.
Abitur (higher education entrance qualification) at Gymnasium am Silberkamp in Peine. Community service (alternative military service) at the Peine branch of Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband (a charitable organisation). Studied political science and sociology at Potsdam University and Hagen Open University. Employee of Brandenburg State Parliament; 1998 assistant to a member of the German Bundestag. Editor of “Berliner Republik” magazine, member of Arbeiterwohlfahrt (workers’ charity), member of VfB Peine football club and TSV Bildung (sport and leisure association).Joined the SPD in 1988, Chairman of Peine SPD association, Sub-district Deputy Chairman of Peine SPD and District Chairman of Braunschweig SPD; General Secretary of the national Social Democratic Party since 2005. Member of the German Bundestag since 1998.
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Bishop Wolfgang Huber
Chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany
Bishop Wolfgang Huber was born in Strasbourg in 1942, studied theology in Heidelberg, Göttingen and Tübingen from 1960 to 1966 and was awarded a doctorate the same year he graduated. After working as a curate and priest in the following two years, he served until 1980 as an assistant and later deputy head of the Research Institute of the Evangelical Community in Heidelberg; in 1972 he qualified as a professor. In 1980 Wolfgang Huber moved to Marburg University, where he served as Professor of Social Ethics, before returning to Heidelberg and being named in 1989 Lilly Visiting Professor at Emory University in Atlanta, USA. In 1983 Wolfgang Huber assumed office as President of the German Evangelical Church Congress; since 1994 he has served as Bishop of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg (which since 2004 has included Silesian Upper Lausitz). From 2001 to 2003 he was a member of the German government’s National Council on Ethics. He was elected Chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany in 2003.
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Dr.-Ing. Dr.-Ing. E.h. Hans-Peter Keitel
Chairman of the Executive Board of HOCHTIEF AG and
President of the Federation of the German Construction Industry
Hans-Peter Keitel (born in 1947) studied construction engineering at Stuttgart Technical University before moving on to postgraduate studies in ergonomics and economics in Munich, where he obtained his doctorate at the Civil Engineering Institute of the Technical University in 1975. He gained his first professional experience in tunnel construction and managing major projects. Between 1975 and 1987 he worked for Frankfurt consultant engineers Lahmeyer International in a number of senior positions in Germany and abroad, including South and Central America. He was able to put his experience in project management to good use when he served from 1986 to 1987 as a technical consultant to a banking consortium involved in the Channel tunnel project. Hans-Peter Keitel joined HOCHTIEF, Essen, in 1988. Initially as a director and from 1990 as a member of the Management Board, he was primarily responsible for foreign business and the company’s foreign holdings. In 1992 he became CEO of HOCHTIEF. He is responsible for corporate governance, HOCHTIEF Construction Services Europe and corporate communications. Since 2005 Hans-Peter Keitel has been President of the Federation of the German Construction Industry and Vice-President of the Federation of German Industries.
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Norbert Lammert
President of the German Bundestag
Norbert Lammert was born in Bochum in 1948 and studied political science, sociology, recent history and social economics at Ruhr University in Bochum and at Oxford University from 1969 to 1975. In 1975 he was awarded a doctorate in social sciences. He subsequently lectured at colleges of higher education in Bochum and Hagen while also working freelance in adult education, continuing to train as a teacher at various academies, foundations, associations and companies. He began his political career as a member of Bochum municipal council and later assumed various other offices at local, district and regional level. In 1986 he became District Chairman of the Ruhr CDU and a member of the North Rhine-Westphalia CDU Regional Executive, where he was Deputy Chairman from 1990 to 1997. In 2001 the CDU politician, whose private interests include art and sport, was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Norbert Lammert has been a member of the German Bundestag since 1980. Between 1989 and 1998 he was a parliamentary state secretary, first at the Ministry of Education and Research, then – from November 1994 – at the Ministry of Economics and from May 1997 at the Ministry of Transport. During the 15th electoral term – from October 2002 to 18 October 2005 – Norbert Lammert was one of the Vice-Presidents of the German Bundestag. On 18 October 2005 he was elected President of the German Bundestag.
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Anna Lübbe
Winner of the annual "Youth and the Economy" project
Anna Lübbe was born on 17 December 1987 in Rostock and attended the twelfth grade of Friderico-Francisceum Gymnasium in Bad Doberan. In 2005 she was the winner of the annual "Youth and the Economy" project which the Association of German Banks organises in co-operation with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Anna Lübbe opened the XVIIIth German Banking Congress in Berlin.
Anna Lübbe passed away on 21 July 2006 after a short illness.
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Angela Merkel
Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
Angela Merkel was born in Hamburg in 1954. After studying physics at Leipzig University she became a research assistant at the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, where she was awarded a doctorate in 1986 for work on quantum chemistry. She joined Democratic Renewal, a pro-democracy group, at the end of 1989 and in March 1990 was appointed deputy government spokeswoman for the de Maizière government. Angela Merkel joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in 1990 and in the same year was elected to the German Bundestag as a direct candidate. She was a member of the cabinet between 1991 and 1998: until 1994 as Minister for Women and Youth and subsequently as Minister for the Environment. From 1991 until her election as CDU General Secretary in 1998 she was Deputy Chairwoman of the Christian Democrats. In 2000 she was elected Chairwoman of the CDU and after the elections to the Bundestag in 2002 was also Chairwoman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. November 2005 saw Angela Merkel become Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
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Klaus-Peter Müller
President of the Association of German Banks and
Chairman of the Board and Managing Directors of Commerzbank AG
Klaus-Peter Müller born 1944 in Duppach/Eifel, he trained as a banker at Bankhaus Friedrich Simon KGaA in Düsseldorf. He joined Commerzbank AG in 1966. After occupying several positions, including in Düsseldorf, Duisburg and New York, he was appointed Joint Manager of the New York branch in 1982. Between 1986 and 1990 Klaus-Peter Müller was Executive Vice President and Head of Corporate Banking. In 1990 he became head of the department in charge of the bank’s East German operations and a member of the Board of Managing Directors. Klaus-Peter Müller has been Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors since 2001 and President of the Association of German Banks since 2005.
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Hans-Gert Pöttering
Chairman of the Group of European People’s Party and
European Democrats in the European Parliament
Hans-Gert Pöttering was born in Bersenbrück in 1945 and studied law, politics and history at the universities of Bonn and Geneva. After a spell at Columbia University in New York in 1971 he completed his doctorate in 1974 and passed his second state law examination in 1976. Between 1974 and 1980 Hans-Gert Pöttering served as European affairs spokesman of the Junge Union in Lower Saxony and later as Chairman of the Lower Saxony Europa Union while continuing his academic career from 1976 until 1979 as an assistant lecturer. The first direct European parliamentary elections in 1979 saw Hans-Gert Pöttering elected to the European Parliament, where he has represented the region of Osnabrück, Emsland and East Frisia ever since. Since 1990 he has been Chairman of Osnabrück CDU and since 1999 a member of the CDU Executive Committee and Federal Executive. From 1994 to 1999 he was Deputy Chairman and since 1999 he has been Chairman of the largest parliamentary group in the European Parliament, the Group of the European People’s Party and European Democrats (EPP-ED). He has also been Vice-Chairman of the EPP since 1999. Hans-Gert Pöttering was appointed lecturer at the University of Osnabrück in 1989 and honorary professor six years later.
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Peer Steinbrück (SPD)
German Federal Minister of Finance
Peer Steinbrück was born in Hamburg in 1947 and has been a member of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) since 1969. After studying economics and social sciences at Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, he worked from 1974 to 1986 in various federal ministries and in the Federal Chancellery. From 1986 he spent four years as head of the office of the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Johannes Rau. In 1990 Peer Steinbrück moved to Schleswig-Holstein, where he worked first as a state secretary before becoming Minister of Economics, Technology and Transport in 1993. Between 1998 and 2000 he was Minister of Economics and SMEs, Technology and Transport of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He became Finance Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2000 and two years later North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister and a member of the State Assembly. Peer Steinbrück has been Federal Minister of Finance since November 2005.
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Axel Weber
President of the Deutsche Bundesbank
Axel Weber was born in Kusel in Rhineland Palatinate in 1957 and studied economics and management at the University of Constance. From there he moved to the University of Siegen, where he was awarded a doctorate in economics in 1987 and qualified as a lecturer in economics in 1994. He subsequently took up a professorship in economic theory at the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms University in Bonn. In 1998 he moved to the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, where he was professor of applied monetary economics. He also served as Director of the Center for Financial Studies in Frankfurt until 2002. From 2001 to 2004 he held a chair in international economics at the University of Cologne and from 2002 to 2004 was a member of the German Council of Economic Experts. Since April 2004 Axel Weber has been President of the Deutsche Bundesbank and a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank.
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Bernd Ziesemer
Editor-in-Chief of Handelsblatt
Bernd Ziesemer was born in Bückeburg in 1953 and after studying political science graduated from the Henri Nannen School of Journalism in Hamburg. He began his career in journalism as a correspondent for the ddp and vwd news agencies in Bonn and Frankfurt am Main. In 1985 he joined the Handelsblatt Publishing Group, where he worked in various positions including Editor and Section Head at the group’s business magazine WirtschaftsWoche and as a correspondent in Moscow and Tokyo. Bernd Ziesemer has been Editor-in-Chief of Handelsblatt in Düsseldorf since 2002. He is the author of the noted book “Auf dem Rücken des Drachen” (Busse und Seewald Verlag, 1989), which looks at China on its way to becoming a global power, and the publication “Die Neidfalle” (Campus Verlag, 1999), which analyses the social consequences of envy. His latest book about the economic rise of German companies in the 1950s and 1960s, “Pioniere der Wirtschaft”, is being published by Campus Verlag in August 2006. |
