Germany Picks First Female President of BSI Cybersecurity Agency

(Bloomberg) -- Germany has chosen European Central Bank Director General of Information Systems Claudia Plattner as the new head of its cybersecurity agency, the first female appointed to the role.

Plattner, who has overseen the ECB’s IT and communications systems since July 2021, will succeed Arne Schoenbohm as president of the BSI Federal Office for Information Security, the interior ministry said Tuesday in Berlin. Schoenbohm was stripped of his powers in October after a television report uncovered an alleged link with Russian intelligence.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser described Plattner as “an outstanding, internationally connected IT security expert with extensive management experience” and said she will be the first woman to lead one of the ministry’s security agencies when she takes over on July 1.

“I am certain that challenges such as the protection of critical infrastructure and of our state against cyber threats will be in very good hands,” Faeser said in an emailed statement.

Plattner previously worked for Deutsche Bahn AG subsidiary DB Systel, where she was responsible for modernizing the company’s IT systems. She holds master’s degrees in applied mathematics from Tulane University in Louisiana and in mathematics from the Technical University in Darmstadt, Germany.

Plattner will remain at the ECB until the end of June and Gerhard Schabhueser, the current BSI vice president, will continue to run the agency until then, the interior ministry said.

Misbah Khan and Konstantin von Notz from the ruling Greens party welcomed the appointment and said Plattner would be taking over “in extremely turbulent times.”

“Russia’s war of aggression has revealed how inadequately our democracy is still protected against certain security threats,” they said in an emailed statement, adding that the Schoenbohm case had “led to considerable uncertainty.”

“It is good that the months-long standoff over the future head of the BSI has finally come to an end and that a further loss of reputation has been averted,” they said.

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