Management Board of the Deutsche Bahn AG

Member of the Management Board for Digitalization and Technology

Professor Sabina Jeschke was named Member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bahn AG responsible for Digitalization and Technology as of November 10, 2017.

Professor Sabina Jeschke was born in Kungälv, Sweden, on July 27, 1968. She studied physics, computer science and mathematics at TU Berlin. After holding research positions at NASA, the Ames Research Center in California, and Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, she earned her Dr. rer. nat. degree in 2004.

Jeschke was appointed junior professor for new media at TU Berlin in 2005 in conjunction with the establishment of the university's media center. In 2007, she became a professor at the Institute for IT Service Technologies (IITS) within the department of electrical engineering at the University of Stuttgart, and director of the university's data center. In 2009, she accepted a position at RWTH Aachen University, where she specialized in computer science and cybernetics in mechanical engineering.

Jeschke served as director of the IMA/ZLW & IfU Cybernetics Lab at the department of mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University from 2009 to 2017. She served as her department's associate dean from 2011 to September 2016. Her specialties include transport and mobility, the internet of things, robotics and automation technology, and artificial intelligence.

After completing research positions in Hong Kong and Singapore in 2015 and 2016, Jeschke took a sabbatical in 2017 to establish a think tank for strong artificial intelligence at Volvo Car Corporation in Gothenburg, Sweden. Jeschke has gained extensive industry experience through many projects and partnerships with renowned companies, in particular in the mobility, vehicle and logistics sectors.

She was appointed to the Management Board of Deutsche Bahn on November 10, 2017. On the board, she is responsible for digitalization and technology. Her contract, which was initially for three years, was extended by the Supervisory Board on December 11, 2019, for five years until the end of 2025. As of the beginning of 2020, she will also be responsible for heavy vehicle maintenance.

Jeschke is married and has a son.

Member of the Management Board for Human Resources and Legal Affairs

Martin Seiler was named Member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bahn AG responsible for Human Resources and Legal Affairs as of January 1, 2018.

Martin Seiler, who was born in 1964, held a variety of HR positions at Deutsche Telekom before joining DB. He most recently served as Director of Human Resources and Industrial Relations, a position he assumed in June 2015. In that role, he was responsible for 70,000 employees at Telekom Deutschland and, as Management Spokesperson for Telekom Training, was also responsible for all the vocational trainees and cooperative education students at the company.

Seiler began his career in 1980 at Deutsche Post in Baden-Baden. After working for the German Postal Workers Union (which would later merge with ver.di, the German United Services Trade Union), and in that capacity serving as a member of the European Commission's Social Dialogue, Seiler took on a management role at Deutsche Post in Bonn in 2003. He held a variety of management positions during his tenure.

In 2004, Seiler became HR Director for the Express and Logistics business segment, where his responsibilities included integrating the HR work of the DHL companies in Germany. As HR Director for Express Deutschland, Seiler represented the company during many negotiations between employer and employee representatives. Beginning in 2009, he was also responsible for human resource management at all the DHL companies in Switzerland and Germany.

Seiler joined Deutsche Telekom in 2010 as Director of Human Resources and Industrial Relations for Deutsche Telekom Kundenservice GmbH.

Member of the Management Board for Infrastructure

Ronald Pofalla was named Member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bahn AG responsible for Infrastructure as of January 1, 2017.

Ronald Pofalla was born in Weeze, Germany, on May 15, 1959. After earning a degree in social pedagogy at Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, he studied law at the University of Cologne, passing the first state examination. He completed his legal clerkship at the Kleve regional court, passing the second state examination. He began practicing law in 1991.

Pofalla was a member of the German Bundestag from 1990 to 2014. He served as legal advisor to the parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union parties (CDU/CSU) from 2002 to 2004 and as Vice Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group for economic and labor affairs from 2004 to 2005.

Pofalla was Secretary General of the CDU in Germany from 2005 to 2009 and was appointed Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Affairs in 2009, a position he held until 2013. Pofalla joined Deutsche Bahn in 2015, serving as Chief Representative for Political and International Relations from January through July 2015. He was appointed Board Member for Economic, Legal and Regulatory Affairs in August 2015. Pofalla has served as Board Member for Infrastructure since January 1, 2017.

Chairman of the Management Board of Deutsche Bahn AG

Dr Richard Lutz has been CEO since 22 March 2017.

Richard Lutz was born into a railway family on May 6, 1964. After studying business administration, he worked as a research assistant to the chair for business administration at Kaiserslautern University, where he earned his doctorate in 1998.

Lutz joined Deutsche Bahn AG in 1994. In the years that followed, he held a variety of management and strategic project management positions in the Finance/Controlling Division.

Lutz served as Head of Corporate Controlling starting in 2003. He then became the Management Board Member for Finance/Controlling in April 2010, a position which he held until the end of 2018.

Since March 2017, Richard Lutz has served as Chairman of the Management Board and CEO of Deutsche Bahn AG. Together with his Management Board team, he is pressing ahead with Group-wide implementation of DB's overarching "Strong Rail" strategy. The aim is to make Deutsche Bahn more robust, more powerful and more pioneering, thereby facilitating the shift of traffic to climate-friendly rail. This is not only an important contribution to achieving climate targets, but also to improving people’s mobility, logistical services for businesses as well as European integration.

Lutz is married and has three grown children.

Member of the Management Board for Freight Transport

Dr Sigrid Nikutta joined the DB Management Board as Board Member for Freight Transport on January 1, 2020.

Born in 1969, she graduated from Bielefeld University and received a doctorate in Psychology. Having focused her research at the LMU Munich on questions and findings in industrial and organisational psychology, she submitted her doctoral thesis in 2009.

She began her career in the management of a medium-sized company in Bielefeld, and joined Deutsche Bahn in 1996. Her work took her to Dresden and Frankfurt, until she settled for freight transport in Duisburg/Cologne and Mainz, initially as the Head of Human Resources.

She was soon appointed Head of Production and became spokeswoman for the management of block train transport in Mainz. Subsequently, she held the position of Board Member for Production at the subsidiary, DB Cargo Polska.

In October 2010, Sigrid Nikutta left DB to become Chairperson and Chief Operating Officer at Germany's largest public transport company, Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG). As the first female Chairperson, she made the company operate profitably for the first time.

In late 2019, she was appointed Member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bahn. As CEO of the Mainz-based DB Cargo AG she will also be responsible for operational management.

Member of the Management Board for Finance and Logistics

Dr Levin Holle is Member of the Management Board for Finance and Logistics and CFO of Deutsche Bahn AG since February 1, 2020.

Levin Holle was born in 1967, studied in Freiburg im Breisgau and Göttingen, and holds a doctorate in law. In the period from 1994 to 1996, he completed his practical legal training at the Higher Regional Court of Berlin, with stations in South Africa and the United States.

After graduating, Levin Holle began his engagement of almost 15 years at the Boston Consulting Group. The various positions he held at the company took him from the Düsseldorf office via Hong Kong and Warsaw to Berlin. He later assumed leadership of the Berlin office as Senior Partner and Managing Director. He focused on managing large transformation projects in the financial sector and the financial operations of corporations.

At the beginning of 2012, he was appointed Director General for Financial Markets Policy at the German Federal Ministry of Finance. His responsibilities there included national and European financial market regulation, federal debt management and the supervision of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and the federal financial institutions including the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). He was a member of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bahn AG from the beginning of 2018 until his appointment to the Management Board.

Levin Holle is married and has four children.

Member of the Management Board for Passenger Transport

Berthold Huber was named Member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bahn AG responsible for Passenger Transport as of Mach 22, 2017.

Berthold Huber was born in Heidelberg, Germany, on October 9, 1963.

After earning a degree in political science, he began his career as a management consultant in 1990. He was then appointed Head of Organizational Change Management at Schitag Ernst&Young Unternehmensberatung GmbH in 1996.

Huber joined Deutsche Bahn AG in 1997 and held a variety of management positions, including Chairman of Regional Management at DB Regio in Bavaria and Board Member of DB Netz AG for Human Resources. Huber served as CEO of DB Fernverkehr AG from November 2010 to July 2015. He was appointed DB Board Member for Traffic and Transport in August 2015.

Huber is married and has four children.