Dr. Thomas Steffen - State secretary

Curriculum vitae

Dr. Thomas Steffen (*25 December 1961) was appointed State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Health in Bonn/Berlin on 15 May 2019. Previously, from January 2012 to April 2018, he was State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Finance where his responsibilities included European and currency policies, financial markets and regulation, international cooperation and macroeconomic policy issues. Thomas Steffen was instrumental in managing the European state debt crisis after moving from the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) to the Federal Ministry of Finance as Head of Directorate for Europe in October 2010.

At the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority in Bonn, Thomas Steffen served eight years as Chief Executive Director of Insurance and Pension Fund Supervision and was on the authority's Executive Board. In 2003 he also took over European and international tasks. From early 2007 to autumn 2009, he chaired the Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pension Supervisors in Frankfurt.

Prior to his move to BaFin in 2002, Thomas Steffen was Head of Division at the Federal Ministry of Finance, with a remit that included Federal Government export guarantees and state guarantees. As of 1995 he had worked at the Federal Ministry of Finance with responsibilities for federal holdings. He also held the position of private secretary to Parliamentary State Secretary Karwatzki and, from 1998 to 2000, he was a senior policy officer at the German Bundestag. Thomas Steffen began his professional career in 1990 by joining the Directorate-General for Industrial Policy at the Federal Ministry of Economics in Bonn. In 1991/1992 in the wake of German reunification he switched to the Treuhandanstalt privatisation agency in Berlin and then to the Ministry of Finance in Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where he served as Head of Division from 1993 to 1995.

Thomas Steffen studied law and political science in Mainz, including a study visit to the partner university in Dijon, completing his state examinations in 1987 and 1990. He earned his doctorate from the University of Mainz in 1992 with a doctoral thesis in comparative law, complemented by courses of study at the London School of Economics and Political Science.