Simone Menne
“A united Europe is important for the economy. And we must also create a sustainable Europe for the people. That is why I am committed to United Europe.
This mentoring programme is unique, because mentee and mentor work together on topics that shed light on working, living and business in Europe and offer mentees the chance to integrate this into their lives and working environment. In this way, it also helps the mentors to get to know concrete examples of implementation and possibly also to use them as best practice in other areas to advance Europe together.”
Overview
Simone Menne, current President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany, is a German business manager. She was CFO of Lufthansa from 2012 to 2016. From September 2016 until the end of 2017, she was a member of the management board of Boehringer Ingelheim, responsible for its finance division. Menne is currently a supervisory board member and non-executive director at several companies and runs an art gallery in Kiel, Germany. She has been member of the Board of Directors of United Europe since December 2019.
Career History
After finishing her studies in business administration at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Germany, Menne began working at the audit department of ITT Inc. in 1987.
In 1989, she began her career at Lufthansa as an internal auditor. In 1992, she was appointed accounting manager for the Western Africa region. Later, Menne became managing director of Lufthansa Revenue Services, where she was responsible for IT, user services and a project to realign Lufthansa Passage’s revenue management. From 1999 to 2004, she was head of finance & human resources; in this capacity, she was responsible for commercial management and HR for the region Southwest Europe until 2001, and subsequently for the whole of Europe. From 2004 to 2010, Menne was vice president of finance & accounting at Lufthansa Technik. In 2010, she became CFO of the former Lufthansa subsidiary British Midland and oversaw its sale to International Airlines Group. In 2012, Menne was appointed CFO of Deutsche Lufthansa and, thus, became the first female CFO of any company listed on the German DAX stock market index.
In her role as CFO of Deutsche Lufthansa, Menne was chairwoman of the following supervisory boards: Lufthansa Cargo AG, LSG Lufthansa Service Holding AG, Lufthansa Systems AG and Delvag Luftfahrtversicherungs AG. In addition, she was a supervisory board member of Lufthansa Technik AG.
On 9 June 2016, Lufthansa announced that Menne had requested the early termination of her management contract effective 31 August 2016. On 1 September 2016, she became a member of the Management Board of Boehringer Ingelheim, responsible for finance. At the end of 2017, her engagement with Boehringer Ingelheim ended.
Since that time, Menne has become a member of several Supervisory Boards and gives speeches on topics like digitization and the role of women in business. She currently serves on the Supervisory Boards of BMW AG and Deutsche Post DHL AG. She is also a non-executive director at Johnson Controls International Plc. and Russell Reynolds Ass. Furthermore she is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology and the American Chamber of Commerce Germany. She is a Board Member of United Europe.
Personal
Since 2019, Menne has run an art gallery in her hometown of Kiel, Germany. In her blog, Menne writes on several topics, such as digitisation, business, art, and women in leadership.