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Who We Are

Committees and team

The Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. consists of the Board of Trustees, the Executive Board and the team of the administrative office. The Foundation Board determines the guidelines of the Foundation's policy. It currently has seven members and two advisory members. The full-time Executive Board manages the day-to-day business and implements the projects and programs of the foundation together with the team of the administrative office. In various program areas, the Foundation is supported by independent boards of trustees and selection committees, for example in awarding prizes, scholarships and lectureships. The composition of the selection committees can be found on the respective program pages.

Board of Directors

Ansgar Wimmer

*1967 in Osnabrück, has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. since October 2004, and its Chairman since July 2005. From 2000 to 2004, he was a member of the City Council of Gütersloh's Department of Culture, Education, Youth, Social Affairs and Sports. He gained work experience as a project manager at the Bertelsmann Foundation, at the United Nations (UNCTAD/ Geneva) and at the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. He is a fully qualified lawyer and holds a Master's degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University) as a John J. McCloy Scholar.

Ansgar Wimmer

Andreas Holz

*1963 in Hamburg, s. 2001 commercial director of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S., s. 2005 as a member of the Executive Board. Previous professional positions: KPMG Consulting AG (manager/authorized signatory), Albingia Versicherungs-AG (power of attorney, last responsibility for the entire direct share portfolio of the insurance group as portfolio manager), Hamburger Sparkasse (training as bank clerk, then completion of a trainee program including further training as savings bank business economist). Andreas Holz graduated from the University of Lüneburg with a degree in business administration. Commitments in the Bundesverb. Dt. Stiftungen (seal of quality for trust foundations), board member of the Liesel Klein Foundation and Rotary International. He is married and has three grown-up children.

Andreas Holz

Executive assistant and office management

Marina Meyer

*1965 in Celle, has been assistant to the Chairman of the Board of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. since September 2020 and is responsible for the secretariat and office management. From 2009 to 2020, she worked as an executive assistant at the DAA Foundation Education and Career and the Finkenau Kindergarten Foundation. In 1991, she graduated in business administration from the University of Hamburg and initially worked in the field of marketing and trade fairs.

Marina Meyer

Assistant to the Chairman of the Board, Office Management, Project Management Max-Brauer-Award

+49 40 33 402 – 10

meyer@toepfer-stiftung.de

Anja Grischek

*1971 in Celle, has been Assistant to the Executive Board at the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. since June 2005 and is responsible for secretarial services and the management of various real estate properties. Previously, she was secretary to the management and marketing assistant at PwC Deutsche Revision AG (1997 - 2001) and partner secretary at Ernst & Young AG (2001 - 2005). After a one-year stay abroad in the USA, she completed her training as a Business Administrator for European Management (1996) at the Europa Fachakademie in Hanover.

Anja Grischek

Assistant to the Executive Board, Leasing and Real Estate Management

+49 40 33 402 – 21

grischek@toepfer-stiftung.de

Program department

Uta Gielke

*1971 in Dresden, took over as head of the cultural funding area of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. in 2005 and has been deputy head of the foundation's program department since 2020. She has been a member of the board of the Carl Toepfer Foundation since 2016. She studied applied cultural studies and is also trained as a speech therapist.

Uta Gielke

Deputy Head of the Program Department, Program Management Culture

+49 40 33 402 – 14

gielke@toepfer-stiftung.de

Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S. | Judith von Cube

Dr. Judith von Cube

joined the team of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. and the Toepfer Stiftung gGmbH in May 2020. Previously, as a research assistant, she was responsible for student advising and program management of the Master of Education at the Teacher Education Center of RWTH Aachen University and organized the 2019 international education conference EARLI as a conference manager. In parallel, she completed a Master's degree in Empirical Educational Research and pursued a PhD in the same field on positive emotions of students.

Dr. Judith von Cube

Head of Scholarships, Head of Communications

+49 40 33 402 – 70

cube@toepfer-stiftung.de

Mona Janning

has been part of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. team since 2012 and was initially responsible for the area of education, and since 2017 for the area of society with a focus on collaborative journalism. She studied political science at the FU Berlin and the University of Amsterdam, worked at the University of Hamburg, The Network University in the Netherlands, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus and Kampnagel, and led a support project for parents with a migration background.

Mona Janning

Program Management Society and Journalism

+49 40 33 402 – 87

janning@toepfer-stiftung.de

Fritz Rummel

*1986 in Eckernförde, has been working at the Toepfer Foundation since 2017 and is responsible for the education program area. Here he is primarily responsible for the socio-spatial project "heimspiel. For Education," whose goal is to support three Hamburg neighborhoods over the course of 10 years in understanding "education as a community task" and to build corresponding structures. Previously, he worked as a freelance coach and educational consultant in the extracurricular education sector and in youth welfare. Fritz Rummel holds a degree in education and studied with a focus on supervision and counseling as well as sociology and European ethnology at the Philipps University of Marburg.

Fritz Rummel

Greta Schlünz

*1990 in Wolfsburg, has been part of the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S. and Toepfer Stiftung gGmbH team since February 2023. In addition to the topic of communication, she oversees a scholarship program for international master's students in Germany and the Toepfer Foundation's residential residence in the Elbehaus. Her last professional stations were the provincial administration of the province of Salzburg, where she was responsible for the visual arts funding area, and the Foundation Art and Nature, where she organized symposia and events as a speaker in the "Discourse & Society" team. Greta Schlünz studied art history and cultural studies at the University of Leipzig.

Greta Schlünz

Head of Residencies, Cultural Officer

+49 40 33 402 – 11

schluenz@toepfer-stiftung.de

Joanne Sonnemäker

Joanne Sonnemäker has been part of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. team since February 2024. Among other things, she works as a consultant on the WissKomm-Kolleg and Zwischenraum in the Science programme area as well as special projects of the foundation. Her professional career has taken her to the Körber Foundation's Culture Department and the Hamburg Historical Museums Foundation. She has also realised projects with the Hamburg Foundation Office and the Berlin Museums Association. Joanne Sonnemäker studied cultural studies and cultural and media management in Lüneburg, Prague and Hamburg.

Joanne Sonnemäker

Programme Development, Organisation and Events Officer

+49 40 33 402 – 25

sonnemaeker@topefer-stiftung.de

Dr. Klara Stumpf

joined the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. in August 2019 and is head of the program areas Sustainable Land Use and Science. Previously, she was coordinator of a project on the common good economy and head of the research area "Climate, Culture and Sustainability" at the Norbert Elias Center for Transformation Design & Research at the European University Flensburg. Klara Stumpf studied environmental sciences with a focus on environmental policy, environmental economics, ecology and nature conservation at Leuphana University Lüneburg, where she received her PhD in 2014 from the Chair of Sustainability Economics with a thesis on sustainability and justice.

Dr. Klara Stumpf

Head of Science Programmes, Head of Sustainable Land Use Programmes

+49 40 33 402 – 12

stumpf@toepfer-stiftung.de

Administration

Valentina Magri

*1974 in Catania, has been a member of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation team since April 2024 and is responsible for office organisation. She studied Modern Foreign Languages and Literature at the Università degli Studi in her native Sicily. In 1997 she completed the ERASMUS student exchange programme at the University of Bonn and decided to make Germany her new home. In 2000 she worked in the accreditation team for Expo 2000 in Hannover. In addition to her work as a team assistant and in administration, she also worked as a language assistant at the Italian Consulate General in Hannover and as a buyer for the delicatessen company Viani Importe GmbH.

Valentina Magri

Volunteers

Jana Panebianco

*2004, has been working at the Toepfer Foundation as part of an FSJ since September 2023. During her FSJ, she will gain an insight into the various areas of programme work as well as the day-to-day running of the foundation. Her tasks include research, writing texts, editing the website to a limited extent and occasionally looking after the Millerntorwache.

Jana Panebianco