SZ Wirtschaftsgipfel

She is the first woman to head the world's largest independent trade union: In 2015, Christine Benner (born in 1968) was elected vice chairwoman of the powerful IG Metall union, for which she had worked in various capacities since 1997; a headline at the time read: "IG Metall dares revolution". Benner knows the industry that has shaped Germany for 125 years: she is on the supervisory boards of BMW and Continental, for example. As a sociologist, she analyzes how Germany is changing in the age of digitalization, the energy transition and war - and she wants to shape these changes in the interests of employees.

There are probably few men who have as deep an insight into the German economy as Siegried Russwurm, born in 1963. Since the beginning of 2021, Russwurm, who holds a doctorate in engineering, has been President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI). For decades, he worked for Siemens. Until his retirement in March 2017, he sat on the Managing Board for a good eight years. He heads the Supervisory Board and Shareholders' Committee of Voith and is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of thyssenkrupp.

Born in Oberhausen in 1979, studied economics and politics in Cologne and Stockholm, at the same time attending the Cologne School of Journalism. 10 years as economics editor at the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung", then moved to the current position as deputy head of the economics department and head of the Frankfurt bureau. Since autumn 2022 she has been head of the SZ economics department.

Ulrich Schäfer is deputy editor-in-chief of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. After seven years at Der Spiegel, he began reporting from Berlin in 2003, initially as deputy head of the SZ parliamentary bureau. From 2007, he headed the business editorial department for nine years, the Munich, Region and Bavaria department for three years and built up the SZ's new newsdesk as head of news.

born in 1977, has been leading the editorial team of the Süddeutsche Zeitung together with Wolfgang Krach since summer 2020. Previously, she was business editor for Axel Springer's Handelszeitung in Zurich before returning to Tages-Anzeiger as head of news and CvD and joining the editorial team in 2016, then as editor-in-chief from 2018.