Foundations Board of Trustees

The Board of Trustees consists of three members from the Executive Board of the Börsenverein and six additional members. The Executive Board appoints the President and two other members. The other six members are elected by the Executive Board for three years. They have the possibility to extend for additional three years. These members do not need to be members of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association.

Klaus Brinkbäumer

Born in 1967 in Münster, is an award-winning journalist and author. Since April 2019 he has been working for the weekly magazine "Die Zeit". Prior to this, he was editor-in-chief of the news magazine "Der Spiegel" from 2015 to 2018, for which he has also worked since 2007, first as a foreign correspondent in New York, and from 2011 as deputy editor-in-chief. In 2016, Klaus Brinkbäumer founded the Europe-wide investigative network European Investigative Collaborations. For his journalistic work, Klaus Brinkbäumer received the Egon Erwin Kisch Award, the Henri Nannen Award and the German Reporter Award.Klaus Brinkbäumer has published numerous books including "Obituary on America", "Under the Sand" and "The Last Journey - The Case of Christopher Columbus".

Klaus Brinkbäumer has been a member of the foundation board since 2019.

Peter Frey

Peter Frey (*1957 in Bingen) is a German journalist. After studying political science, education and Spanish in Mainz and Madrid, Frey began his career at ‘heute journal’, reporting as a foreign correspondent from Washington, later taking over as head of the capital city studio in Berlin and serving as editor-in-chief from 2010 to 2022. Frey is Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Körber Foundation. Since his retirement in 2022, he has continued to focus on socio-political issues, works on various German-Polish projects and is committed to commemorating the Jewish heritage of his home town of Bingen am Rhein.

Peter Frey has been a member of the Foundation Board since 2025.

Sebastian Guggolz

Sebastian Guggolz, born in 1982 on Lake Constance, is a publisher, editor and head of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. He studied art history, German language and literature, and folklore in Hamburg. After several years as an editor at Matthes & Seitz Berlin, he founded the award-winning Guggolz Verlag in 2014, where he publishes new and rediscovered forgotten classics from Northern and Eastern Europe in German translation. Since 2022, he has also been working as an editor at S. Fischer Verlag and, in addition to other jury activities, is spokesperson for the board of trustees of the German Literature Fund.

Sebastian Guggolz has been chairman of the foundation board since 2026.

Jo Lendle

Jo Lendle (*1968 in Osnabrück) is a writer and publisher at Hanser Verlag. He studied literature, cultural studies and philosophy in Hildesheim, Montréal and Leipzig. He began his professional career at DuMont Buchverlag, initially as an editor, later as programme director and publishing director. He has been publisher of Hanser Verlag since 2014. Lendle has also taught at various universities and is extensively involved in voluntary work, including as chairman of the publishing committee and board member of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, patron of literary funding programmes and juror for prestigious literary awards. He is also the author of several novels, which are characterised by poetic language and original subject matter.

Since 2025 Jo Lendle has been a member of the Foundation Council.

Jagoda Marinić

Jagoda Marinić (*1977 in Waiblingen) works as a writer, journalist, presenter and podcaster on topics such as freedom, diversity, migration, racism and identity. After studying political science, English and German, she wrote short stories ("Eigentlich ein Heiratsantrag", "Russische Bücher"), novels ("Die Namenlose", "Restaurant Dalmatia") and plays as well as essays and columns for Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, taz and New York Times. Most recently, her non-fiction book "Sheroes - Neue Heldinnen braucht das Land." was published.

Since 2021, she has hosted the Hessischer Rundfunk podcast "Freiheit Deluxe" (Freedom Deluxe), which features biweekly guests whose work triggers debates on freedom of art, opinion and thought. In her Arte programme "The Book of My Life", she talks to prominent writers about books that have shaped them. In 2022, Marinić was awarded the Luise Büchner Prize for Journalism. In the same year, she was Cultural Journalist of the Year. She is Artistic Director of feeLit - International Literature Festival Heidelberg.

Jagoda Marinić has been a member of the foundation board since 2024.

Ethel Matala de Mazza

Prof. Dr. Ethel Matala de Mazza, born in Unkel am Rhein in 1968, took over the chair of Modern German Literature at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 2010, after her habilitation and the first professorship for Cultural Theory and Cultural Studies Method in Constance. Her research focuses on cultural theory and the literary history of the political imaginary. Since 2008, she has also been involved in the editorial work of the "Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte" (Journal for the History of Ideas) in order to contribute to its publications (e.g. "Der fiktive Staat. Konstruktionen des politischen Körpers in der Geschichte Europas" (2007, co-author) and "Der populärer Pakt. Verhandlungen der Moderne zwischen Operette und Feuilleton" (2017)), to gain new perspectives on historical facts with an interdisciplinary approach.

Ethel Matala de Mazza has been a member of the foundation board since 2016.

Christiane Schulz-Rother

Christiane Schulz-Rother (*1968 in Berlin), owner of the Tegeler Bücherstube bookshop since 1992, has opened or taken over four other bookstores in Berlin in recent years. She has also been an honorary member of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association since 2004, including as co-chair of the Berlin-Brandenburg regional association (2009-2014) and as a representative of the book trade on the board of the federal association since 2018. The latter appoints Christiane Schulz-Rother as Felicitas von Lovenberg's successor on the Foundation Board.

Christiane Schulz-Rother has been a member of the Board of Trustees since 2023.