In January 2021, Dr. Stormy-Annika Mildner (M.Sc.) became the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Germany in Berlin. As adjunct lecturer, she teaches at the Hertie School classes on political economy.
From 2014 to 2020, she was head of the department “External Economic Policy” at the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI), Federation of German Industries, being responsible for international trade and investment topics. In this function, she also spearheaded the BDI TTIP campaign (2015-2016). As Sherpa she was responsible for the German Business 7 Presidency (2015) and the German Business20 Presidency (2016-2017). 2017-2019 she represented the BDI in the Deutschlandjahr Wunderbar Together, an initiative by the German Foreign Ministry, the Goethe Institute, and BDI, to strengthen the German-U.S. relationship.
Until December 2013, she was a member of the Executive Board of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).
Before joining the SWP, she worked for the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), where she headed the program “Globalization and the World Economy”.
Ms. Mildner conducted her Bachelor studies in economics and North American studies at the Free University of Berlin and earned a Master of Science in international political economy from the London School of Economics (2000). She wrote her PhD thesis at the Free University of Berlin on the economic and political rationale of export credit finance in the United States.