Candidates for RBB directorship: Ulrike Demmer, Heide Baumann, Juliane Leopold

The search for directors at Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) is in the final. On Thursday, the candidates will be “walking the show” in the Broadcasting Council, and June 16 is election day. There were 50 applications, three candidates made it onto the shortlist, as reported by RBB on Monday evening: Ulrike Demmer, Heide Baumann and Juliane Leopold. Jan Weyrauch, program director at Radio Bremen, is not up for election, contrary to what was reported by the Tagesspiegel.

Ulrike Demmer

Ulrike Demmer, born in Solingen in 1973, worked from 2016 to 2021 as deputy spokeswoman for the federal government and deputy head of the press and information office of the federal government. In the team of government spokesmen, she represented the SPD side at the time. Before that, between 1998 and 2000, the journalist was a project manager in the communications and marketing department at Radio Eins.

After completing a traineeship at ZDF, she worked for the “Morgenmagazin” in Berlin before moving to the main office of “Spiegel”, first as an editor and then as a correspondent for defense and security policy. Further stations: “Focus”, then until 2016 head of the capital city office of the editorial network Germany.

Heide Baumann, 50, comes from Säckingen, studied at the TU Berlin (MA, media consultant) and at the University of Cambridge (PhD, Doctor of Philosophy). Among other things, she worked for Microsoft Germany as Chief Transformation Officer. Most recently she was a member of the management board of Vodafone Germany.

Juliane Leopold, 40, was born in Halle (Saale), studied journalism and communication sciences in Berlin and has worked for the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” and “Die Zeit”, among others. She has been Editor-in-Chief Digital of ARD-aktuell since 2019.

Oliver Bürgel, Chairman of the RBB Broadcasting Council and the Election and Finding Committee, said on the selection of the candidates: “There was a clear, democratic and transparent procedure that guaranteed direct employee participation right from the start through the involvement of the staff council and independent representatives. Now we can present three highly qualified applicants to the Broadcasting Council, who have very different professional backgrounds and can therefore give very different impetus to RBB.”

Next Thursday, the selected applicants will present themselves to the Broadcasting Council in Berlin. On June 12, they will have the opportunity to introduce themselves to the station’s staff at an internal meeting. The election will take place on Friday, June 16 in Potsdam.

The acting RBB director Katrin Vernau is by no means out of the running. Although she had not applied for the management position by the application deadline, she had confirmed her willingness to remain in office as artistic director. Your previous work in and for the RBB should be understood as a tribute to performance and willingness to perform. The Broadcasting Council expects Vernau to be named as a candidate by June 16 at the latest.