Volker Kefer

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Volker Kefer (May 2012)

Volker Kefer (born January 19, 1956 in Koblenz ) is a German engineer . Until December 31, 2016, he was a member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bahn AG, most recently as Deputy Chairman of the Management Board and responsible for the Infrastructure, Services and Technology departments. Until August 26, 2016, he also held this position at the (now dissolved) DB Mobility Logistics AG .

Kefer left the company. On January 1, 2017, Ronald Pofalla succeeded him as Chief Infrastructure Officer. A new post is to be created for the technology department.

He has been President of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) since January 1, 2019 .

Career

According to his own statements, Kefer's technical interest was aroused by his father, who answered his son's questions about the functionality of various technical devices in detail while attending church on Sunday. I always wanted to take up a technical profession.

He first studied electrical engineering in Erlangen and then moved to Munich to study mechanical engineering. Kefer wrote his diploma thesis in the power plant division of Siemens AG in Erlangen.

After graduating, Kefer began his professional career in 1983 as a development engineer at Siemens in Erlangen. In 1988 he received his doctorate as part of a research project at the Technical University of Munich . From 1988 to 1993 he was project manager at Siemens and later department manager for waste heat steam generators . Until 1996 he worked there in product management for steam power plants . From 1996 to 1998 he was in charge of central marketing for power plant control technology. From 1998 to 2001 he was a member of the executive board of Siemens SGP Verkehrstechnik in Graz . Here he was responsible for the bogies division. From 2001 to 2005 Kefer was division manager for the locomotives division at Siemens Transportation Systems in Erlangen and from April 2005 to April 2006 he was responsible for mass transit in the same function . The switch to the Mass Transit business line took place at short notice as a result of the Combino problems.

Worked for Deutsche Bahn

Kefer (second from right) at the opening of the Bayerischer Bahnhof in Leipzig (December 14, 2013)

On January 26, 2006, the DB Netz Supervisory Board appointed Kefer as the company's CEO. He should take over the post from Roland Heinisch by June 1, 2006 at the latest . From May 2, 2006 to September 2009, he was CEO of DB Netz AG.

Since September 10, 2009, he has been the Board Member for Technology, Systems Network and Services for DB AG and DB Mobility Logistics AG. His first task was to set up a technology department. Since March 2010 he has also been the Board Member for Infrastructure at DB AG. He took over this function from Stefan Garber .

As a member of the management board, he restructured the technology division and, among other things, outsourced DB Systemtechnik . In the arbitration talks on the Stuttgart 21 project , he represented the company's position.

On December 14, 2011, his contract, which ran until September 2012, was extended by five years. In the 2012 financial year, he received remuneration of 1.337 million euros, including 483,000 euros in fixed remuneration.

Kefer was considered a possible successor to Rüdiger Grube as CEO. According to a media report, criticism of him grew because of rising costs for infrastructure projects and delivery delays in the rail vehicle industry within Deutsche Bahn (as of November 2012). Kefer is criticized within the DB Group for cost increases in the Stuttgart 21 project. According to a media report, Kefer's position was endangered due to new cost increases at Stuttgart 21.

On June 19, 2013, the DB Supervisory Board decided to reorganize the distribution of tasks in the Executive Board. Accordingly, a separate board member for technology should be appointed to take over this task from Kefer. As before, Kefer should be responsible for the areas of infrastructure and services. This should relieve Kefer. The replacement, for which a woman should be preferred, would also be a reaction to the increasing technical problems in vehicle registration and in major infrastructure projects. On July 22, 2013, Heike Hanagarth was introduced as a new member of the Management Board for the technology department following a resolution by the Supervisory Board .

He negotiated the second performance and financing agreement for the company .

The appointment of Kefer to a board member with far-reaching competence - responsible for passenger transport, logistics, rail network, technology and services - failed in July 2015 due to resistance from the Federal Chancellery. From a formal legal point of view, the abundance of power, through the simultaneous control of the network and operation, would not have been compatible with European law. On August 1, 2015, he became Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of Deutsche Bahn AG and DB Mobility Logistics AG and Board Member for the expanded Infrastructure, Services and Technology department.

Kefer was responsible for the Zukunft Bahn renovation program .

In June 2016 he announced that he would not extend his employment contract, which expired in September 2017. According to a media report, he had lost support in the supervisory board after he had previously accused the board of having pierced a report on problems at Stuttgart 21. According to his own statements, he left the board of directors of DB for private reasons, not because of the dispute over Stuttgart 21. According to other information, Kefer had developed too much ambition from Grube's point of view. In coordination with Pofalla, Grube Kefer moved to resign on the occasion of negative news about Stuttgart 21. As a critical spirit, Kefer Grube was increasingly bothering him. Grube and Pofalla had jointly ensured that Kefer was isolated and, under the pretext of misjudgments at Stuttgart 21, he would have to resign. The Supervisory Board spoke out against Kefer's early release in order to avoid payment of the remaining salary without consideration. According to his own, later information, Kefer "had no desire to stand there as a permanent oponent". In 2019 he said that at that time he “came to the conviction that I would not succeed in reforming Deutsche Bahn under the conditions at the time” and that he had therefore taken the necessary steps.

DB Netz's CEO Frank Sennhenn was being considered as his successor , and a headhunter also examined external candidates. With the support of the headhunter, Felcht, the chairman of the supervisory board, found Siemens manager Siegfried Russwurm to succeed Kefer in early September 2016. This did not come about after Pofalla's intervention with Transport Minister Dobrindt. On January 1, 2017, Ronald Pofalla succeeded him as Chief Infrastructure Officer. The responsibility for “Zukunft Bahn” and the technology department (provisional) was transferred to Rüdiger Grube. A new board of directors is to be appointed for the area of ​​"technology and quality". A separate position on the board of directors will be created for the technology department.

Further career

On March 23, 2017 it was announced that Kefer would head the Vossloh Supervisory Board from May 24, 2017 . Kefer was approached by Heinz Hermann Thiele in February 2017 . At the Annual General Meeting on May 24, 2017, he was elected to the Supervisory Board with 99.97 percent of the votes and was appointed Chairman in the subsequent Supervisory Board meeting. According to his own statements, Kefer did not seek further positions on the supervisory board at this point in time. On March 4, 2019, Kefer resigned from the chairmanship of the Supervisory Board at Vossloh for personal reasons with immediate effect.

Around a year after leaving DB, he began to support young entrepreneurs. Kefer has been active with Kefer Invest as an investor and with Kefer Consoluting as a consultant since 2017 . Among other things, he works intensively as a consultant for a young start-up from Munich. In the meantime, he was preparing a merger with Alstom for Bombardier , which ultimately did not materialize. In 2018 he joined the start-up Konux as a partner and co-manager , which develops sensors for railway switches .

Kefer occasionally meets with railway manager Richard Lutz .

In 2017 he was awarded the Grashof Memorial Medal by the Association of German Engineers (VDI). In the same year he joined the VDI.

Kefer was elected as the new VDI President on December 13, 2018 by the board meeting of the VDI with a large majority. His term began on January 1, 2019.

Others

Kefer is married and has two children.

By his own account, his ascent was “the result of an extremely large number of lucky coincidences” and hard work. He accepted the offer to switch from Siemens to Deutsche Bahn for two main reasons: In addition to the challenge of becoming head of the largest railway subsidiary, he was very fascinated by Hartmut Mehdorn .

From 2006 to 2009 he was a member of the editorial board of the magazine “ Elektro Bahnen” .

In his free time he goes for walks, rides his bike and motorbike. In 2013 he described himself as a passionate motorcyclist.

literature

Web links

Commons : Volker Kefer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b 175 years of railways. Innovations for the future . Proceedings from March 18 and 19, 2010, p. 22.
  2. ↑ a b Pofalla rises to network boss. In: handelsblatt.com. December 9, 2016, accessed December 9, 2016 .
  3. ↑ a b c Kefer new VDI President. Railway expert wants to devote himself more to professional issues. In: vdi.de. Association of German Engineers, December 13, 2018, accessed on December 17, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Jens D. Billerbeck: Mediator between technology and politics . In: VDI news . No. 1, 2, 3 , January 11, 2019, ISSN  0042-1758 , p. 2 .
  5. ↑ Report on the roll-out of ÖBB series 1216 . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , issue 5/2005, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 219.
  6. ^ Message from Volker Kefer to DB Netz . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . Issue 3/2006, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 106.
  7. ^ Message Kefer in the new office . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . Issue 7/2006, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 323.
  8. ↑ a b c d Dagmar Rees: Technology as part of the process . In: Railway technical review . No. 9 , 2011, ISSN  0013-2845 , p. 56-60 .
  9. ↑ a b Bahn subsidiary Netz occupies top positions from its own ranks . In: Handelsblatt . No. 33 , February 17, 2010, ISSN  0017-7296 , p. 63 .
  10. ↑ Deutsche Bahn AG (Ed.): Moving the Future - Connecting People ( PDF file ( Memento from December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), 10.5 MB). Berlin, 2010, p. 12.
  11. ↑ a b c Nikolaus Doll: The Super Vice . In: Welt am Sonntag . No. 29 , July 19, 2015, ZDB -ID 1123516-0 , p. 26 ( online ).
  12. ↑ Deutsche Bahn AG (ed.): DB Supervisory Board extends Dr. Volker Kefer . Press release from December 14, 2011.
  13. ↑ Deutsche Bahn AG (Ed.): Annual Report 2012 (=  Annual Report . Volume 2012 ). 2012, ZDB -ID 2117244-4 , p. 42 ( PDF file, 19 MB ). PDF; 19 MB ( Memento of the original from October 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rail.dbschenker.de
  14. ↑ Thomas Wüpper: Rail board member Kefer admits planning errors . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , November 24, 2012, p. 13 ( online ).
  15. ↑ Nikolaus Doll: Bahn board member threatens to be expelled because of S21 . In: Die Welt , December 3, 2012, p. 10 (similar version online ).
  16. ^ DB Mobility Logistics AG (ed.): Additional DB board member for technology . Press release 066/2013 OS from June 19, 2013.
  17. ↑ Sven Böll, Peter Müller: Top Manager: Bahn disempowered Kefer executive board . Spiegel online , June 6, 2013.
  18. ↑ Dieter Fockenbrock: Waiting for the profit . In: Handelsblatt . No. 107 , June 7, 2013, ISSN  0017-7296 , p. 16 .
  19. ↑ Nikolaus Doll: Deutsche Bahn gives up its punctuality goals . In: The world . No. 135 , June 11, 2016, ISSN  0173-8437 , p. 10 ( online ).
  20. ↑ DB board member Kefer will not extend his contract. Press release 054/2016. Deutsche Bahn, June 14, 2016, archived from the original on June 15, 2016 ; accessed on June 15, 2016 .
  21. ↑ Daniel Delhaes, Dieter Fockenbrock: longing for the state railway . In: Handelsblatt . No. 114 , June 16, 2016, ISSN  0017-7296 , p. 16 .
  22. ↑ Andreas Böhme: Farewell to the major project . In: Südwestumschau . July 2, 2016, ZDB ID 1360527-6 ( online ).
  23. ↑ Kerstin Schwenn: No longer on the train . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . No. 26 , January 31, 2017, ISSN  0174-4909 , p. 3 (including date online ).
  24. ↑ a b c d e f g Michael Machatschke: What is actually ... Ex-Bahn-Vice Volker Kefer? In: Manager Magazin . No. 11 , October 20, 2017, ISSN  0047-5726 , p. 146 ( online ).
  25. ↑ a b Michael Machatschke: The switchman . In: Manager Magazin . No. 5 , April 28, 2017, ISSN  0047-5726 , p. 16 .
  26. ↑ Michael Machatschke: Looking for a lightweight . In: Manager Magazin . September 23, 2016, ISSN  0047-5726 , p. 24 .
  27. ↑ Markus Balser: Green signals . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . tape 72 , no. 242 , October 19, 2016, ISSN  0174-4917 , p. 17 ( online ).
  28. ↑ DB Supervisory Board sets personnel course for the future. (No longer available online.) In: deutschebahn.com. Deutsche Bahn, December 14, 2016, archived from the original on December 20, 2016 ; Retrieved December 19, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deutschebahn.com
  29. ↑ Personnel changes on the Supervisory Board of Vossloh AG. In: vossloh.com. March 23, 2017. Retrieved March 23, 2017 .
  30. ^ Vossloh Annual General Meeting: The new chairmen of the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board introduce themselves. In: vossloh.de. May 24, 2017. Retrieved June 4, 2017 .
  31. ↑ Dr.-Ing. Volker Kefer resigns from the supervisory board , on finanzen.net on March 4, 2019, accessed on March 5, 2019.
  32. ↑ Andreas Kunze: The third life . In: Handelsblatt . No. 219 , November 13, 2018, ISSN  0017-7296 , p. 45 (among other titles online ).
  33. ↑ Ken Fouhy, Jens D. Billerbeck, Peter Steinmüller: The VDI has a special task . In: VDI news . No. 21/22 , May 24, 2019, ISSN  0042-1758 , p. 4 .
  34. ↑ a b "When in doubt, I listen to my gut feeling" . In: Handelsblatt . No. 114 , June 18, 2013, ISSN  0017-7296 , p. 24 .
personal data
SURNAME Kefer, Volker
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German manager, member of the board of directors of Deutsche Bahn
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Koblenz