Dr. Volker Wissing

Federal Minister for Digital and Transport

Bio: bmdv.bund.de

Dr. Bernhard Rohleder

CEO of Digital Association Bitkom

Bernhard Rohleder was one of the founders of Bitkom e.V. at the end of 1999 and has been the association's Chief Executive Officer since then.

Rohleder began his professional career with positions at ZF Friedrichshafen GmbH in Saarbrücken, the press publisher Ploetz in Berlin and the Brandenburg Ministry of Economics in Potsdam. In 1994, he joined the Information Technology Association of the VDMA and ZVEI, Frankfurt/Main, as Press Spokesman and Assistant to the Executive Board. Three years later, Rohleder took over the position of Deputy Managing Director there and shortly afterwards that of Managing Director. In 1997, he was simultaneously appointed Secretary General of Eurobit, the European umbrella organisation of the IT industry, with headquarters in Brussels and Frankfurt. In 2000, he merged Eurobit with the European Association of the Communications Technology Industry to form the new umbrella organisation Digital Europe and subsequently represented the German high-tech industry on its board. In 1997/1998, Rohleder also led the General Secretariat of the International Information Industry Congress (IIIC), the world association of the IT industry, in rotation. From 1997 to 2005, he was also Managing Director of the European Information Technology Observatory (EITO).

Rohleder is a member of the supervisory board of Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe AöR (BVG) as well as a member of the council of Agora Verkehrswende, the advisory board of Mobility Data Space, the expert advisory board "Climate Protection in Mobility" at the Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport and the platform "Digitalisation of the Economy" of the Digital Summit of the Federal Government.

Dr. Mirko Paschke

BMDV

Mirko Paschke is a lawyer at Germany´s Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV) and responsible for the holistic view on digitalisation and sustainability since 2021.
For more than 20 years, Mirko Paschke has been involved in scientific and regulatory debates on public networks from an economic and infrastructure policy perspective.
As head of the Digital Networks WG of the ministry he helped shaping the framework for the deployment of digital networks since 2016. Building on the discussions about the challenges of broadband expansion, he initiated the BMDV's workshop series "Shaping digitalisation sustainably" in 2021.

Julia Polley

BMDV

Julia Polley is a fully qualified lawyer and works as an advisor in the Digitalisation and Sustainability Unit of the Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport (BMDV). Her main topics are issues of sustainability in and through digitalisation with a focus on data centre. Previously, she was head of a team in the Risk, Contract, Committee Management and Controlling Department at ITZBund and was employed as an advisor for legal and regulatory affairs at a telecommunications association in Cologne.

Nicolas Deutsch

PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH WPG

Thanks to his fourteen years of experience in energy consulting at PwC, Mr Nicolas Deutsch can draw on extensive expertise from projects for public and private clients from a wide range of sectors. As a project manager, he is responsible for strategic projects for energy suppliers, industrial and commercial customers as well as ministries and public agencies. From his many years of advising companies in the energy industry, he is also familiar with the corporate and utility perspective with regard to the challenges of the energy transition.

Josephine Neuhaus

PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH WPG

Josephine Neuhaus is a renewable energy and sustainability expert at PwC. She has advised many clients from the public sector, but also companies and associations around energy efficiency and strategies for climate action. Ms. Neuhaus knows the opportunities, but also the challenges on the way to climate neutrality and brings her experience from working with clients from all sectors to the compilation of the toolkit.

Nicolai Schwartz

PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH WPG

Nicolai Schwartz is an expert in the field of Digital Infrastructure for PwC. His most important area of expertise is sustainability in digitalisation and in particular in digital infrastructure. Throughout his career Mr Schwartz was involved in a number of sustainability guides for public institutions.

Susanne Dehmel

Managing Director Bitkom

Susanne Dehmel has been a member of the Executive Board since October 2014, where she is responsible for the Legal & Security business area and the topic of artificial intelligence.
She is a member of the GAIA-X Board of Directors and also represents the business association in the Expert Council for Consumer Affairs of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection and is on the Data Protection Advisory Board of Deutsche Telekom AG. For Bitkom, Susanne Dehmel is also active as deputy chair of the Self-Regulation Information Industry Association (SRIW) as well as with Deutschland sicher im Netz e.V..
Susanne Dehmel is a lawyer and completed her law studies in Passau, Freiburg and Cardiff. Before she took over the area of data protection at Bitkom, she was responsible for the areas of copyright and industrial property rights from 2002-2009. She has been head of the data protection department since 2010. An important part of her work is the promotion of trust and security in the digital world and the practical further development of the legal framework for the digital economy and society.

Nick Kriegeskotte

Bitkom

Nick Kriegeskotte joined the digital association Bitkom in 2014. The association promotes and drives the digital transformation of the German economy and advocates broad social participation in digital developments. Since 2019, Nick Kriegeskotte has headed the Infrastructure & Regulation team with the areas of Industry 4.0 and technical regulation, data centers and communication networks, media policy and platform regulation, telecommunications policy and regulation. He is responsible for positioning the association in all infrastructure policy and regulatory issues at state, federal and European level in these areas. He is represented in numerous committees on behalf of the association and is, among other things, a member of the ATRT steering committee at the Bundesnetzagentur (German Federal Regulatory Body).
Before joining Bitkom, the lawyer completed his legal traineeship among other stations at the Bundesnetzagentur in Bonn, the cable network operator Unitymedia KabelBW and Deutsche Telekom. Nick Kriegeskotte studied law at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn and the University of Warsaw. During this time, he worked as a student assistant for the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament in the press and public relations department.

Franka Weckner

Y7

Franka Weckner is a law student at the University of Heidelberg. Currently she is involved in the Youth7 Engagement Group Process under the German G7 Presidency and serves as a Track Sherpa for the Working Group "Global Health & Solidarity". The Youth7 is the official G7 Youth Engagement Group. As a former German Youth Delegate to the UN General Assembly and European Youth Envoy to the ITU, she is passionate about youth participation, digital transformation and the protection of human rights online.

Ruszlan Biwoino

Y7

is a 22-year-old economics student from Germany and he is serving as Y7 Track Sherpa during Germany's G7 presidency. In his role as Track Sherpa, he coordinates deliberations and focuses specifically on how to make our democracies more resilient and inclusive. Before joining the youth engagement group of the G7, Ruszlan represented German youth as a German Youth Delegate to the United Nations. When Ruszlan is not studying economics, he is passionate about children's rights, especially the right to education. For that reason, he started working together with UNICEF Germany and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) prior to his involvement with Y7.

Dr. Marcus Trapp

Fullflamingo GmbH iG

Dr. Marcus Trapp is a software engineer with a passion. True to his motto "Software is no end in itself; it always supports or enables business", he supports companies in the areas of Digital Ecosystems, User Experience for Business Applications, as well as Creativity & Innovation Workshops, and Digital Design. After all, software is the most important driver of innovation in (almost) every industry today. Marcus Trapp is a founding member of the Digital Design working group at Bitkom. After working as Department Head at Fraunhofer IESE for over 15 years, he left the Institute in October 2022 to co-found Full Flamingo, an eco-tech start-up for sustainable commerce compensation (B2B2C).

Alexander Rabe

CEO eco

With over 1,000 member companies, eco is the largest association of the Internet industry in Europe.

Rabe is responsible for the strategic, content-related and communicative external presentation of the association across all locations. Previously, Rabe had been Head of the Policy & Law Division since 2016 and, as Head of the Capital Office, was responsible for eco's political work at national and international level. Before that, Rabe had been active in various roles for the Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI) - the largest professional association for computer science in the German-speaking world - since 2010. Most recently as the GI's chief executive and managing director of the Deutsche Informatik-Akademie GmbH.

From 2008-2010, he was a lecturer at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) in Kaiserslautern. Rabe is a member of the advisory board Marktwächter Digitale Welt of the VZBV and the advisory board for the BMWK-funded Mittelstand 4.0-Kompetenzzentrum IT-Wirtschaft.

Volker Ludwig

Managing Director Digital Realty Germany

Volker Ludwig is Managing Director at Digital Realty Germany and has more than 20 years of expertise in the data centre market. Prior to his executive role at Digital Realty, he was CEO of Mainova WebHouse and as Senior Vice President and member of the executive management team at e-shelter / NTT Global Data Centers responsible for Sales and Marketing in the EMEA region.

Jake Oster

Director of Energy & Environment Public Policy EMEA, AWS

Jake Oster is dedicated to promoting, advancing and scaling clean energy. He currently heads energy and environment policy for Amazon Web Services in EMEA, working with policymakers to address climate change and expand access to clean energy. Prior to joining Amazon, Jake worked as the Senior Director for Regulatory and Government Affairs for EnergySavvy, a Seattle-based clean tech company. At EnergySavvy, he crafted and secured new policy changes to modernize the measurement of energy efficiency savings. He also served as the Deputy Chief of Staff and Legislative Director for Representative Peter Welch (VT) and oversaw the Congressman’s work on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Jake received a BA from the University of Vermont.

Dr. Béla Waldhauser

CEO Telehouse / KDDI

Dr. Béla Waldhauser has been Chief Executive Officer of Telehouse Deutschland GmbH since 2012 and has been responsible for the integrated operational business of KDDI and Telehouse in Germany as a whole since 2014.

From 2007 to 2012, he was Managing Director of Global Switch in Germany. In the same position, Dr. Waldhauser was previously responsible for the German business at TeleCity for 4 years. Before that, he was managing director of the business units in Germany and Austria at Teleglobe.

Béla Waldhauser has orchestrated the "Data Center Infrastructure Competence Group" at eco e.V. for over 10 years, which includes heading the associated working group.

Since February 2018, Mr Waldhauser has been appointed spokesperson for the "Alliance for Strengthening Digital Infrastructure in Germany" initiated by the digital infrastructure industry.

Since 2021, Béla Waldhauser has been a member of the Policy Group in the EUDCA and also of the DIHK Committee for Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Since 2022, Dr Béla Waldhauser has been a Board Member of the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact (CNDCP).

Mr Waldhauser is also involved in the DC working groups of Bitkom and the Economic Council and is active in the German Data Center Association (GDA).

Dr Béla Waldhauser is President of the Lions Club Dreieich for the Lions Year 2022/2023.

Dr. Frederic Ufer

CEO VATM

Dr. Frederic Ufer has been Managing Director of VATM alongside Jürgen Grützner since May 2022. Prior to this, he had headed the legal and regulatory department of the association since July 2007. After studying law in Cologne, the lawyer worked scientifically at the University of Cologne. He also received his doctorate from the University of Cologne on the subject of “Provider Liability". Dr. Ufer gained profound knowledge in the field of telecommunications and media law during several years of work in an international law firm. In New York, he worked in project finance and corporate mergers.

Patrick Blankers

Sustainability Manager, Ericsson

Patrick Blankers (born 1964) is Policy Director Sustainability at Ericsson. In this role he drives sustainability initiatives with external and internal stakeholders. He is engaged in several initiatives that are related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including energy efficiency and circular economy.

During his 25 years at Ericsson, Patrick has fulfilled various roles in strategy, regulatory affairs, line management and technology. Prior to that, Patrick worked 7 years at Dutch operator KPN as a researcher and project manager.

Therese Seiringer

Head of Sustainability, Vodafone

Therese Seiringer has been Head of Sustainability/ESG at Vodafone Germany since spring 2021 and together with her team, she works on strategic issues around climate protection, resource optimisation and how to make processes and products more sustainable. Thus, in her daily work, she also deals with how Vodafone can help other companies to operate more sustainably through digital solutions.
Originally from Austria, Seiringer studied business administration in Vienna and Management in Durham/UK and worked in the financial sector in Vienna and London before joining Vodafone.

Daniel Seufert

BREKO

Sustainability has accompanied me as a cross-sectional issue in all professional activities. From my political science studies, my work experience as a trend and innovation consultant for digital SMEs, to my current position with BREKO, the German Broadband Association. BREKO advocates for the roll-out of fiber networks to the building and home, and is thus committed to the most sustainable and energy efficient digital infrastructure. In production and the use of hardware components, our members are constantly careful to optimize their use of resources. Together, BREKO’s members are continuously looking for new ways to increase their levels of recycling and refurbishment.

Lutz Stobbe

Fraunhofer IZM

Dr. Lutz Stobbe is a Senior Scientist and heading the group Sustainable Networks and Computing at the Fraunhofer IZM Department Environmental and Reliability Engineering. His research focuses on the applied environmental assessment and eco-design of microelectronic and ICT systems. As a project manager with more than 20 year experience, he has been involved in preparatory studies for the EU Eco-Design Directive, ICT energy assessments for Germany government, and product lifecycle assessments in R&D projects. 

Klaus Wessing

CEO Gigaset

Klaus Weßing, born in 1957, has been CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of the German telecommunications company Gigaset AG since December 16th 2015. Klaus Weßing stands for telecommunications in Germany. His career goes back 40 years and is closely linked to Siemens and Gigaset. The focus of his work has always been on products and product solutions, customer-oriented processes as well as the development and production structures behind them. The technical excellence, sustainable product quality and lean as well as flexible manufacturing processes at Gigaset are largely due to him.

Dr. Andrea Huber

CEO ANGA

After attending law school in Freiburg, Hamburg, and Washington, D.C., Andrea Huber practiced law as an attorney in Berlin. In 2007, she joined Deutsche Telekom where she was responsible for international public affairs. From 2000 to 2005 she worked as Government Affairs Director for Microsoft Deutschland GmbH, followed by a position as Managing Director of Informationsforum RFID, an industry-led group supporting the implementation of RFID technology in Germany. As of 2010, Andrea Huber is Managing Director of ANGA Der Breitbandverband e.V., representing broadband network operators investing in Gigabit infrastructure. She is based in Berlin, Germany.

Rolf Härdi

Chief Technology Innovation Officer (CTIO) Deutsche Bahn

Rolf Härdi, an electrical engineer with an MBA, started his career as a R&D engineer at ABB. After several engineering and Railservice management positions in various countries, he became responsible for the worldwide Engineering at Bombardier Propulsion and Controls. In 2008 he was appointed CEO at Sersa Group, a European rail infrastructure company. In 2012 he took the position as a managing director and board member at Knorr-Bremse SfS GmbH. Since August 2017 Rolf Härdi is Chief Technology Innovation Officer, CTIO at Deutsche Bahn AG.

Marc Oman

Principal, Energy & Infrastructure at Google

Marc Oman works in Google's data center deployment and energy strategy team.  His team is leading Google’s efforts to achieve carbon-free energy matching, on an hourly basis and in every location, by 2030.  Since joining Google in 2015 Marc has concluded several gigawatts corporate Power Purchase Agreements (“PPAs”) for solar PV, onshore and offshore wind PPAs across 9 European countries.  He also manages new infrastructure projects, including delivery of build-to-suit data center capacity, and the provision of grid energy services from Google-owned batteries.  Marc Oman has a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard Business School.  He is a dual French-American citizen and lives in Paris, France. 

Benjamin Springub

VP Operations Development & Head of Group Program „Schubkraft“, Deutsche Telekom

is Vice President Operations Development for the Business Customer Segment of Telekom Deutschland, and Head of a Group Program offering consultancy to businesses and public entities with regard to economic stimulus schemes. In addition, he is Project Lead for the Business Customer Area at the Group-wide Sustainability Program. This includes, among other things,  the development of digital solutions that support companies and public entities improve their own sustainability track record by reducing emissions or saving energy.

Patrick Bottermann

Head of Sustainable Business and Entrepreneurship, cscp

Patrick Bottermann is Head of Sustainable Business and Entrepreneurship at non-profit, internationally renowned think and do tank CSCP. His expertise includes the topics of sustainable digitisation, business model innovation, circular economy, sustainable innovation and multi-stakeholder engagement. The CSCP emerged as an independent organisation from a cooperation between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. The CSCP is an active member of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (gesi.org) and member of the board of the ICT sector initiative Digital with Purpose (digitalwithpurpose.org). Mr. Bottermann also heads the centre for business and digital responsibility in the county of North Rhine-Westphalia. 

Jean-Benoît Besset

Head of Group Corporate Societal Responsibility, Orange

A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications, Jean-Benoît Besset held various position within the Orange Group: research and development, networks operations, commercial animation and support for mobile data on B2B market. After two marketing positions still on B2B market, he joined the Orange France strategy department to model the network and business transformation to fiber optic and high-speed broadband and set up pilots such as 100% fiber cities. In 2018 he became VP for network and IT strategy for Orange France and in 2020 he launched Environmental Responsibility for network and IT direction in Orange France. Since September 2022 he is Head of Orange Group CSR.

Caspar von Preysing

Head of Gigabitbuero des Bundes / German National Broadband Competence Center

Caspar is Partner in the Digital Infrastructure Advisory practice at PwC and Head of the National Broadband Competence Centre in Germany, the Gigabitbüro des Bundes. In recent years, he has supported the establishment and operation of broadband competence centers in several federal states and advised various market participants on the development and implementation of their gigabit strategies. He has been managing complex projects for public and private clients for over 20 years and has extensive experience in financing, strategy development and project management. Caspar holds a Master in Economics & Politics from the University of Edinburgh, is a Chartered Accountant (ACA) of the "Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales" and a certified Business Mediator (IHK).

Susanne Henckel

State Secretary, Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport

Bio: bmdv.bund.de