The Registered Stakeholder Meridian Stiftung monitors the implementation of the foundation’s mission and determines the medium-term and annual financial planning. He appoints the members of the Advisory Board and the Executive Board.
The Advisory Board decides on whether to approve projects and funding requests which are presented to it by the Executive Board and provides advice on strategic questions.
Its members are:
Johannes Meier sits on the supervisory boards of New Work, Gasunie, Unicef Germany and the Meridian Stiftung. He is an honorary professor at the HHL Graduate School of Management in Leipzig, where he teaches leadership. During the course of his professional career, he has also been CEO of the European Climate Foundation, chairman of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, CEO of GE Compunet Computer AG and a partner at McKinsey.
Nicole Deitelhoff has been the Executive Director of PRIF – Leibniz Institute for Peace and Conflict Research in Frankfurt since 2016. She is also Professor of International Relations and Theories of Global World Order at Goethe University Frankfurt / M. and co-editor of the annual Peace Report of the German Institutes of Peace and Conflict Research.
Ira Heß chairs the Family Board of the founding family.
Dirk Messner is president of the German Environment Agency. In addition, he is co-director of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Previously he headed the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University, was director of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability and co-chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) and of other high-level national and international advisory boards.
Christian Müller has also been a member of the Foundation Board of Stiftung Mercator Schweiz since 2016. He is an active Angel Investor and co-founder of Strenia Investment, which invests in impact-oriented companies. He sits on various boards of these companies, including the governing boards of NatureRe Capital and of TRI Dental Implants in Switzerland and the Advisory Board of ECF Farmsystems in Berlin.
Asli Sevindim has headed the Integration department at the Ministry for Children, Youth, Family, Equality, Migration and Integration of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia since 2019. Previously she worked as an independent radio and television journalist and presented the TV news programme Aktuelle Stunde. For the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010 she was the artistic director responsible for “City of Cultures”.
Thomas Vollmoeller is Supervisory Board Chairman at eDreams Odigeo S.A. and sits on the Supervisory Board of Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH and of the Ravensburger Group. He was Executive Board Chairman at New Work SE between 2012 and 2020. He has held further leadership positions at Valora AG and Tchibo GmbH.
Andreas Voßkuhle holds the Chair in Public Law at the University of Freiburg and is director of the Department of Political Science and Philosophy of Law. He was a judge at Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court from 2008 to 2020 and its president and chairman of the Second Senate from 2010. Since 2020 he has additionally been chairman of the association Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie.
Almut Wieland-Karimi was executive director of the Center for International Peace Operations in Berlin from 2009 until August 2022. Previously she ran the offices of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Washington DC and in Kabul. She is a member of the UN secretary-general’s Advisory Group for the UN Peacebuilding Fund. In addition, she is voluntary CEO of the NGO Mediothek Afghanistan.
The members of the Executive Board conduct Stiftung Mercator‘s business and represent the foundation externally. Furthermore, they make decisions about the selection of projects and funding requests or approve such projects and funding requests up to specific maximum thresholds.
The members of the Executive Board are:
Dr Wolfgang Rohe was appointed as Executive Director of Stiftung Mercator in 2014.
He previously held various positions at two of the most influential science organizations in Germany. From 1992 to 2002, he worked with the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) in Bonn, initially in the Department for Collaborative Research Centers and then as Head of the strategic planning unit. In 2002, he moved to the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) where he served as Head of the Research Policy Department and since 2005 also as Vice Secretary General. Wolfgang Rohe holds a Ph.D. in German philology.
Dr Markus Piduhn has been an Executive Director of Stiftung Mercator since 2015 and heads the Commercial Affairs Division.
Previously he was Area Vice President Business Industries at the TecDAX-listed CompuGroup Medical. A chemist with a PhD and MBA, Dr Piduhn has during the course of his career held various positions at the MDAX-listed company Gerresheimer, most recently as Executive Vice President Tubular Glass Europe & Asia, at consultant firm Arthur D. Little and at DSM Polyolefine.