Grillo proposes Dieter Kempf as new BDI President
Kempf served as president of BDI member association Bitkom (Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media) from 2011 to 2015. During this time he was also a BDI vice president. From July 1996 to March 2016 he was chairman of the board of Datev eG in Nuremberg, a software company with around 7,000 employees and annual sales of approximately 880 million euros.
Dieter Kempf was born in January 1953. After studying business administration from 1973 to 1978 in Munich, he worked at Arthur & Young (now Ernst & Young) from 1978 to 1991, becoming a partner in 1989 (managing director and co-partner).
He then joined Datev in 1991 as member of the executive board, and head of the product and software development departments. From 1992, he served as vice chairman, going on to become chairman in 1996, a position he held until March 2016. Under Kempf’s leadership, Datev grew from a company operating across Germany to one of Europe’s largest IT service providers.
Kempf is also a member of the supervisory board of Deutsche Messe AG (since 2012) and of market research institute GfK SE (since 2016), where he is chairman of the audit committee. He was made honorary professor of Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2005.
“After four years of serving at the head of German industry, I will, as laid down in our statutes, not be standing as a candidate for the position of president again”, said Grillo, BDI president since 2012, whose second term in office will end as scheduled at the end of 2016. “The time has come – and I believe it is the right time – to place the responsibility for the BDI in new hands.”
Grillo further stated: “During the digitisation process of the past months, Kempf has been a great help to me and the BDI with his wealth of experience and ideas. He has all the qualities a BDI president needs. He has the necessary expertise and many years of experience working in industrial policy at the association level, which is exactly what our industry and Germany as a whole needs to successfully navigate the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
Dieter Kempf said: “Ulrich Grillo made me an offer some time ago that I could not turn down: To work in a leading capacity at this country’s most important business association, and help ensure that our country makes a success of digitisation.” Kempf went on to say the role of an umbrella association now was to provide orientation, always in a constructive way but ready to fight hard for the cause, if necessary. “I want digitisation in Germany to be a big success story, leading to more growth and prosperity, more skilled jobs and bright prospects for all of German industry.”
Grillo added: “Dieter Kempf is the right man in the right place to further tap the potential of products made in Germany as digitisation proceeds. After the elections in November, he will lead the BDI from January 2017 with great success.”
