Speaker Bio

Mark Speich is Secretary General of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation (KAS). From September 2017 to May 2025 Mark Speich was the State Secretary for Federal, European and International Affairs of the State of North-Rhine Westphalia (since 2022 also for Media Politics) as well as the State’s Plenipotentiary to the Federal Government. Prior to this role he was CEO of Vodafone Foundation and the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications, Vodafone’s corporate think tank, respectively from 2008 to 2017. Before joining Vodafone Mark Speich served as Director of Policy Planning to the CDU/CSU-Parliamentary Party in the German Bundestag and as Director of Programs for the Herbert-Quandt Foundation. In the years 1997 and 1998 he was Personal Advisor to the President of Bonn University. He started his career in the political advisory staff of the CDU’s Secretary General in 1995. Mark Speich was educated at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge (MPhil) and the University of Bonn (Ph.D.) where he read Modern History, Political Science and Constitutional Law.