born on January 3rd, 1971 in Offenbach am Main. After attending school in Offenbach, Sana’a (Yemen) and Frankfurt, he began studying political science in Frankfurt in 1992. While still being a student, he joined the Green Party in 1989 and was chairman of the Green Youth of Hesse from 1992 to 1994. In 1993 he became a member of the Offenbach City Council, and in 1995 he became a member of the Hessian State Parliament. From May 2000 he led the state parliamentary group of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, and from September 2007 he also became head of the state party, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Hessen. He resigned from both posts before being appointed Hesse’s Minister for Economic Affairs, Energy, Transport and Regional Development (since 2019: Housing) and Vice Minister President of Hesse on January 18, 2014.

As Group Head of Sustainability for the Universal Investment Group, Robert Bluhm is responsible for the sustainability strategy and the integration of sustainability in all business areas. Since joining the company in 2019, he has been working with all partners of Universal Investment on a better understanding and more transparent implementation of ESG.
After graduating from Maastricht University with a Master of Science in international business administration, Bluhm started as a consultant in Munich in 2012. After this station, he moved to asset management boutique Bantleon in 2015, where he optimised the structure of the Bantleon Group as Head of Projects & Operations, first in Switzerland and then in Frankfurt.

Jenny Bofinger-Schuster was appointed as a full-time member of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) in August 2022, effective 1 December 2022. Prior to joining the ISSB, Ms Bofinger-Schuster served as Senior Vice President for sustainability and operational excellence at Siemens. In this role she was responsible for developing the company’s sustainability strategy and for implementing new disclosure requirements. Prior to this she held senior positions at Siemens Management Consulting and Horváth & Partners Management Consultants.
Ms Bofinger-Schuster holds a Diploma in Business Administration from the University of Augsburg and an MBA from the University of Dayton, Ohio.

Dr Friederike (Fritzi) Köhler-Geib is Chief Economist of KfW Group and Head of KfW Research. Prior to this, she spent more than 10 years at the World Bank, most recently in the position of Lead Economist and Programme Leader for Central America.
She studied Economics in the USA, France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. As Chief Economist of KfW Group, she analyses trends relevant for KfW in the economy, society and on the financial markets and brings a new dynamic to the economic and financial policy debate. The focus of her work lies in the analyses of economic developments and growth trends in Germany. A particular focus is placed on small and medium-sized enterprises and the role of innovation and digitalisation in improving competitiveness, as well as issues related to the goal of a climate-neutral economy. Furthermore, Dr Fritzi Köhler-Geib also actively addresses economic policy connections between Germany, Europe and the world.

Having graduated from the University of Mannheim with a degree in business management, Thomas Kusterer embarked on his career in 1994 at KPMG.
After spending ten years working in the audit and corporate finance departments at KPMG, Thomas Kusterer joined EnBW in 2004. He was initially the Head of Accounting and Taxation, before being appointed as Senior Vice President of Finance at the EnBW Group in 2008.
Thomas Kusterer became CFO of EDF Energy in London in 2009; he has been CFO at EnBW since 2011. As part of this role, he is involved in international organizations such as the IIRC and TCFD, dealing with transparency and sustainability matters in the financial sector.

Since January 2019, Cornelius Riese has been Co-Chief Executive Officer of DZ BANK AG, the central institution of all cooperative banks in Germany. Born in Heidelberg in 1975, he studied business administration at the University of Mannheim, graduating with a degree in business administration. In 2005, he obtained his doctorate at the Technical University of Chemnitz.
From 1999 to 2006, Riese worked for Accenture in strategy consulting for financial service providers. In 2007, he joined DZ HYP AG as a division manager. In May 2009, Riese joined DZ BANK AG as divisional head of Central Services Division. Since 2013, he has been a member of the Board of Managing Directors with responsibility for Finance, Strategy and Controlling.

After completing his training as a bank clerk and studying business administration at the University of Würzburg, Elmar Schobel has been working in auditing and management consulting since 1992. Specialising in the asset management market, he is responsible for KPMG’s audit services in this sector. Elmar Schobel represents KPMG in various national and international professional committees. He is particularly involved in the Investment Committee of the IdW (FAIN) for the sustainability-related disclosure and transformation topics and has accompanied their high interpretation dynamics for many years.

Alexandra Themistocli has been responsible for sustainability at SEB in Frankfurt since 2021. In this position, the certified expert for sustainable finance (CESF) is responsible for all activities in the DACH region relating to strategic ESG advisory for corporate customers and financial institutions.
Her focus is on the development of green and sustainability-linked financing frameworks that support companies in their transformation, as well as on the integration of emerging topics such as water, biodiversity, circularity as well as new EU regulations. She is also the link to the SEB Group, which is considered a pioneer in sustainable financial products.
Alexandra Themistocli has many years of international banking experience from various capital market positions at JP Morgan, Helaba and Dresdner Kleinwort. Most recently, she was Senior Client Executive Financial Institutions at SEB Germany.

Klaus Vaßen is head of the Unit Linked Strategy Platform team at Zurich Gruppe Deutschland. Among other things, this team manages and develops the sustainability and ESG strategies for Zurich’s unit-linked insurance business. He is also a member of Zurich’s European Sustainability Working Group with a focus on sustainability regulation. Klaus Vaßen has been with Zurich Gruppe Deutschland for 14 years in various positions in investment management. Prior to that, he worked for 9 years in wealth management and private banking at Deutsche Bank Group.

Jürgen von der Lehr, born in 1972, studied business administration and economics at Universityof Mannheim and received his diploma in 2000.
He began his professional career at Deutsche Bank AG in Mannheim where he completed his training as a banker in 1994 and served as a Credit Analyst parallel to his studies at university. In 2003 he joined BearingPoint GmbH in Frankfurt as a Consultant, being responsible for projects in the area of Commercial and Retail Banking as well as Asset Management.
In 2004 he joined DZ Bank AG as Manager Inhouse Consulting. In 2005 he moved to Warsaw to serve as an Interim COO at DZ Bank Polska S.A. End of 2006 he moved back to Frankfurt to serve DZ Bank as Strategic Business Development Manager, being responsible for strategic and operative development of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) partnerships and shareholdings.
In 2007 he joined A.T. Kearney GmbH in Frankfurt and Dubai office to work on cutting edge strategy projects for leading European and international banks as Senior Consultant.
2010 Jürgen von der Lehr joined Deutsche Bank AG Frankfurt. He started as Senior Manager at Group Management Consulting. In 2011 he became Head of Strategy at Deutsche Bank AG, Private & Business Client Division where he was responsible for the strategic agenda and the branch network strategy. 2014 he became Head of Online Brokerage with full business ownership. 2016 he got promoted and became Head of Think Tank, Digital Innovation & Online Brokerage.
2018 he stepped out of the Deutsche Bank AG cosmos and served as Management Consultant / Partner at Oliver Wyman GmbH.
In 2018 Jürgen von der Lehr joined ING-DiBa AG as Head of Daily Banking & Payments, owning end-to-end responsibility for all payment, account, and ecosystem related topics. He successfully developed the strategic roadmap and implemented e.g. mobile payment solutions; new account model plus delivered significant process optimizations. Since July 2020 he is Head of Strategy & Sustainability, responsible for Corporate Strategy, Portfolio Steering, Innovation Management, M&A, Fintech Strategy and Co- operations and Sustainability. In addition, from October 2021 until XXX Jürgen von der Lehr was as Branch Manager of ING-DiBa Austria.

Verena von Ondarza is an economist and works as a freelance journalist for NDR Info Wirtschaftsredaktion and NDR Investigation. She has been following developments in the sustainable finance sector for many years – explaining and investigating. As part of a fellowship from the Mercator Foundation, Verena von Ondarza has also been working on media coverage around and about sustainable financial products.