Dr.-Ing. Axel Stepken new VdTÜV President

Dr.-Ing. Axel Stepken new VdTÜV President

The Chairman of the Board of Management of TÜV SÜD AG Dr.-Ing. Axel Stepken is the new President of the Association of German TÜV organizations (VdTÜV). Dr Stepken was elected President by the General Meeting of Members in Berlin on 24 May 2011, and thus succeeds Dr Guido Rettig, Chairman of the Board of Management of TÜV NORD AG, who had headed the association since 2007 and was duly no longer available for re-election after two terms of office. Rettig will continue to be a member of the VdTÜV Presidium. Next to Stepken and Rettig, Dr Klaus Brüggemann was also confirmed as an executive member of the Presidium for another term of office.

Following his election, Stepken announced that he intended to further extend and reinforce VdTÜV's commitment at European level: "In this context, the association bundles the expertise of the powerful TÜV organizations, which are represented in all corners of the world. In the centres of decision-making in Berlin and Brussels, VdTÜV ist the first point of contact for all issues related to safety, sustainability and environmental protection." According to Stepken, one of the responsibilities of the association is to work at the interfaces with politics, business and industry and society and make complex technical contexts easier to comprehend.

Stepken thanked his predecessor Guido Rettig for his long and dedicated office as President of VdTÜV: "I would like to thank him especially for the work and energy which he invested in VdTÜV. During his term of office, the association succeeded in anchoring the industry firmly in Berlin and Brussels and in making sure that the individual TÜV organizations increasingly speak as one voice."

Axel Stepken, born in 1958, studied electrical engineering at RWTH Aachen. After completing his doctorate in 1989, he held various international management positions at ABB before joining TÜV SÜD AG as a member of the Board of Management in 2002. Stepken has been Chairman of the Board of Management of TÜV SÜD, the global technical service group, since June 2007. In addition to the above, Stepken has been a member of the VdTÜV Presidium since 2007.

Contact: Matthias Andreesen