Curriculum Vitae

Tanja Gönner was born in 1969 in Sigmaringen, Baden-Württemberg.

After qualification as a legal officer in the higher judicial service, she studied law at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen and, after completing her first and second state examinations, completed her legal clerkship at Ravensburg District Court.

From 1996 to 1999, Tanja Gönner was an associate in a law firm. After being admitted to the bar, she became a partner there in 1999, specializing in insolvency law (until 2004).

From 2002 to 2004, Tanja Gönner was a member of the German Bundestag. In 2004, she became Minister of Social Affairs of the State of Baden-Württemberg. In 2005, she took over the Ministry of the Environment, which she headed until the beginning of 2010. From February 2010 to May 2011, Tanja Gönner was Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Transport of the state of Baden-Württemberg and a member of the state parliament from 2011 to 2012. From 2012 to 2022, Tanja Gönner was Spokeswoman of the Board of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

Since November 2022, she is Director General at the Federation of German Industries (BDI e.V.).

She also performs a number of honorary activities. For example, she is a member of the German Council for Sustainable Development, the German Committee for UNICEF, the supervisory board of the Liebenau Foundation and the board of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Tanja Gönner is a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany since 1987 and has been a member of the CDU's Federal Executive Committee from 2000 to 2012.