Woman joins Bundesbank Board: Hesse nominates Fritzi Köhler-Geib

The Hessian state government has been searching for a long time, and now it has made its decision. According to information from the Tagesspiegel, Fritzi Köhler-Geib is to take over the post on the board of the Bundesbank, which has been vacant for months.

Köhler-Geib is chief economist at the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) based in Frankfurt am Main. It is said that it was important to Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) to propose a politically independent woman for the position.

Formally, the right to propose the position for the board member that Köhler-Geib is to take over lies with the Federal Council. The approval of the states in the meeting in September is considered certain. The fact that Hesse took so long was also explained by the change of government from black-green to black-red in January of this year.

Start at the World Bank

Köhler-Geib is 46 years old and has been chief economist at the state-owned development bank KfW since 2019. This also gives her experience in the political field, as the federal government regularly finances its development programs through KfW. Before joining KfW, she worked for the World Bank.

As chief economist, she was responsible for the research and analysis services of KfW. According to the information on the development bank’s website, the focus of her work is the analysis of economic developments and growth trends in Germany.

This means that the Bundesbank’s Executive Board is almost fully staffed again after a long time. It normally has six members, but in the meantime there were only three due to vacancies. Most recently, in March, the black-green state government in North Rhine-Westphalia nominated the former state finance minister Lutz Lienenkämper from the CDU. He and Köhler-Geib replace the board members Joachim Wuermeling and Johannes Beermann, who left last year.

The federal government must now decide on Claudia Buch’s successor. The vice president of the Bundesbank stepped down in March and is now head of banking supervision at the European Central Bank (ECB). The federal government has the right to propose the Bundesbank president (currently Joachim Nagel), the vice president and another board member.