InternalNew Managing and Administrative Director
Claudia Burger will be responsible for human resources, procurement, finance, and safety issues.
As of 1 January 2012, Claudia Burger is the new Managing and Administrative Director at European XFEL. The economist was appointed on 27 October 2011 by the European XFEL Council, which represents the international shareholders of the research organization. Previously, Claudia Burger (46) was Administrative Managing Director at the ILS – Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development in Dortmund, Germany.
At the non-profit European XFEL GmbH, Burger joins the five-member Management Board. As Managing and Administrative Director, she will be responsible for human resources, procurement, and finance as well as safety issues. Her predecessor, Karl Witte (67), who has held the position since the company’s founding in 2009, retired in December 2011.
Burger studied political economics at the universities of Tübingen and Bonn as well as at the Graduate School of Commerce at Waseda University in Tokyo. She earned her Ph.D. at the Otto Beisheim School of Management (WHU) in Vallendar near Koblenz, Germany. During her scientific career, she worked on topics related to the Japanese economy at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo and at the Social Science Research Centre (WZB) in Berlin. From 2001 until joining the ILS in 2008, she held several leading civil service positions in human resources, supervision of local authorities, and financial controlling in North Rhine-Westphalia, where she was also deeply involved in the reform of the municipal financial management system.
Professor Robert K. Feidenhans’l, Chairman of the European XFEL Council: “Karl Witte did an excellent job and will not be easy to replace. However, it is a great pleasure for me now to welcome Claudia Burger to the European XFEL. She has a strong background and the right skills for the position. With Claudia Burger as the Managing and Administrative Director, I am confident that the European XFEL will be on solid ground in the exciting years of construction, commissioning, and operation ahead of us.”
Professor Massimo Altarelli, Managing Director of European XFEL: “I would like to thank Karl Witte once again for his very significant contributions, which started even before the foundation of our new research institution, as well as for his extraordinary dedication to the project. In Claudia Burger we have a new Managing and Administrative Director with extensive experience in science administration, which makes her ideally suited to her new position. I look forward to working with her on the Management Board and wish her every success in her upcoming duties.”
