New Member Appointed to Bundesbank Board: Fritzi Köhler-Geib Takes Over

The Hessian state government has announced that Fritzi Köhler-Geib will take over the vacant position on the board of the Bundesbank. Köhler-Geib, who is currently serving as the chief economist at Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) in Frankfurt am Main, was nominated by Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) for her politically independent background.

The Federal Council has the formal right to propose the position for the board member that Köhler-Geib is to assume, but approval from the states in the upcoming meeting is considered certain. The delay in making this decision by Hesse was attributed to a change in government from black-green to black-red in January of this year.

Köhler-Geib, who is 46 years old, has been working at KfW since 2019 and was previously employed by the World Bank. As chief economist, she is responsible for research and analysis services at KfW, with a focus on analyzing economic developments and growth trends in Germany.

The Bundesbank’s Executive Board is almost fully staffed again after a long period of vacancies. Lutz Lienenkämper from North Rhine-Westphalia was recently nominated by his state government, while Köhler-Geib will replace some of those who left last year. The federal government still needs to decide on Claudia Buch’s successor, who stepped down in March to become head of banking supervision at the European Central Bank (ECB).