Elisabeth Niejahr has been the Managing Director of the "Strengthening Democracy" division at the Hertie Foundation since January 2020. The German journalist worked for 18 years in the Berlin office of the weekly newspaper Die Zeitafter beginning her career at Der Spiegel. Most recently, from 2017 to 2019, she was the Chief Reporter for the business magazine WirtschaftsWoche (WiWo). Niejahr has authored several books on power techniques, demographics, and the current President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. She spent the fall of 2011 as a Fellow at Harvard University and participated in several German-Chinese exchange programs. Between 2013 and 2019, she was a regular guest on the monthly talk show "Thadeusz und die Beobachter" on rbb (Berlin Radio). She also served as a radio commentator for Radio Bremen's political talk show "Berlin Backstage." In 2020, she was awarded "Business Journalist of the Year" for her reporting on economics and society. She studied economics in Cologne, London, and Washington.
