Christoph von Spesshardt Executive Director German-Australian Chamber

Meet Christoph von Spesshardt - New Executive Director at the German-Australian Chamber

Who is Christoph von Spesshardt, and what are his plans for the German-Australian Chamber, its employees and member companies? Christoph is a passionate bilateral professional coming from a background of working in politics and business in Germany and for the APAC region, the last 10 years for the German family company Knauf. He and his family have found a new home in Sydney and are loving the big city so close to nature. Christoph is determined to work with the AHK Australia member companies and our partners to deepen the bilateral trade and investment relationship. To bring it to a sharp message: He is passionate to help all German-Australian businesses to grow. Christoph’s short-term focus is to optimise operational performance with the team of the Chamber, working with dedicated professionals to support our members and the wider German-Australian business community through the coronavirus situation. In the medium term, he and his team will develop a strategy update with the board for the years ahead. The update will be based on the existing pillars Connection, Consulting and Content and will include exciting initiatives and projects to grow the bilateral business in areas such as advanced manufacturing, energy, agritech, health, environmental technologies and resources. This growth will be underpinned with the progress towards the Australia-EU

On 1 May, Christoph von Spesshardt took over the helm at the German-Aus tralian Chamber and has since managed to steer the team through unchartered waters during the Corona times. This short introduction provides you with a first impression of Christoph and his plans for the AHK.

Free Trade Agreement. Christoph has also been featured in the first episode of our new ‘Soundbites’ podcast. Read below which topics he was talking about with our Communications Manager, Ulrike Andresen-Nikolai: ...How are you and your family, and how has COVID-19 impacted your life and plans? Thanks for this question. I’m indeed here with my family, and we are all safe and we’re all good. Let me say thanks for the wonderful and warm welcome to the chamber family. It’s been a great start. You know we in Germany have the saying “Alles neu macht der Mai,” and this May brought a lot of new things and I’m very happy about that. And have your kids gone back to school now?

Christoph: This is the second day and all three kids are back at school as of today. They will for the foreseeable future just go two days a week. But I must say on this occasion that the German International School here in Sydney is doing an amazing job in this obviously biggest social experiment ever.

That’s great to hear. In Victoria, we will still have to wait a while. …Can you share a little bit about your background and what brought you to Australia? Christoph: Sure, I’ve been the last nearly 18 months here in Australia working for Knauf, which is a German family company which produces plasterboards and insulation. I’ve worked for them for the last 10 years and before that in Berlin and obviously in Germany and in Brussels. In the last 20 years, my focus was at the interface of politics and business. I had a few different stations at the German parliament. I worked for a consultancy and for the media. The way to Australia was really through energy efficiency. That was my focus over the last 18 months, to build up an energy efficiency strategy and to implement it here in the APAC region out of Australia. But I caught the Australia bug a little bit earlier, already in 1996 when I was backpacking Australia for a year…

You can listen to the full episode of the podcast online: https://ahkaustralia.blog/2020/05/13/interview-with-the-chambers-new-executivedirector/

Interview by Ulrike Andresen-Nikolai, German-Australian Chamber