Siegfried Russwurm

Siegfried Russwurm (born 27 June 1963) is a German business executive who was president of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) from 2021 to 2024. He has held a number of positions and is chairman of the supervisory board of Thyssenkrupp and Voith Group and a former member of the Siemens Executive Board.

Early life and education Russwurm grew up as the son of a working-class couple in Lichtenfels, Upper Franconia. He attended high school in his hometown and graduated from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 1988 with a degree in production engineering.

In 1991, he completed his doctorate whilst serving as a research assistant at the chair of engineering mechanics, with a thesis focused on numerical simulation. He has been lecturing in mechatronics there since 2005 and has been an honorary professor of mechatronics since 2009.

Career In 1992, Russwurm joined Siemens at the Kemnath production site as a production planner and project manager in the Medical Technology Division. In 1999, he moved within the Group to Solna, Sweden, where he became head of the Electromedical Systems Business Line with sites in Sweden and the USA. In 2003, he moved to Siemens' Industrial Division and became head of the Motion Control Systems Business Line in the Automation and Drives Division.

In January 2008, he was appointed to the Managing Board of Siemens AG, initially serving as Chief Human Resources Officer, with regional responsibility for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the CIS. In 2010, he took over responsibility for the entire industrial business of the Siemens Group. Russwurm has also been a member of the supervisory board of Thyssenkrupp since April 2019. The FAZ newspaper described him as an ‘intellectual mastermind of Industry 4.0’.

Russwurm has been a member of the Shareholders' Committee of the Voith Group since March 2018. In March 2019, he took over as chairman of the supervisory board and Shareholders' Committee of Voith.

In June 2020, Dieter Kempf, then president of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), proposed Russwurm as his successor. Russwurm took office on 1 January 2021 and was re-elected unanimously for a second term in November 2022. His second term of office ended at the end of 2024. He was succeeded as BDI President by Peter Leibinger.

Other positions

Siegfried Russwurm is a member of the executive committee and senator of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) and the board of the German-Swedish Chamber of Commerce.

Publications Siegfried Russwurm: Software: Die Zukunft der Industrie. In: Ulrich Sendler (Hrsg.): Industrie 4.0. Beherrschung der industriellen Komplexität mit SysLM. Springer, Heidelberg 2013, S. 21–36. als Hrsg., with Joachim Lang (Hrsg.): Die europäische Alternative: Unser Weg in Zeiten des globalen Umbruchs. Verlag Herder, Freiburg/Basel/Wien 2021. with Tanja Gönner (Hrsg.): Wie gestalten wir unsere Beziehungen zu China? Verlag Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2022.

Personal life In October 2022, RWTH Aachen University awarded him an honorary doctorate in engineering. From 2012 to 2017, Russwurm served as a member of the University Council and supported the successful application for the Cluster of Excellence ‘Internet of Production’.

He is married and has two grown-up children.