Thomas Heilmann


Thomas Heilmann is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union. Born in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, he has served as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Berlin since 2017.

Career in the private sector

From 2001 until 2008, Heilmann was a partner and CEO of Scholz & Friends. In 2001, he was nominated to join the supervisory board of Axel Springer SE; however, he was replaced by Axel Sven Springer before the vote.
At the request of Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Ursula von der Leyen, Heilmann negotiated a high-profile agreement between investor Nicolas Berggruen and other shareholders on the sale of embattled department house chain Karstadt in 2010.
From 2011 until 2012, Heilmann briefly served as chair of the board at Save the Children Germany.

Political career

From 2012 until 2016, Heilmann served as State Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection in the coalition governments of successive Governing Mayors of Berlin Klaus Wowereit and Michael Müller.
In the negotiations to form a Grand Coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats following the 2013 German elections, Heilmann was part of the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on digital policy, led by Dorothee Bär and Brigitte Zypries.
In the 2016 state elections, Heilmann unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the State Parliament.
Heilmann became a member of the Bundestag in the 2017 German federal election, representing Berlin’s Steglitz-Zehlendorf district. He is a member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs and the Committee on the Digital Agenda. In this capacity, he is his parliamentary group’s rapporteur on blockchain.

Other activities

Corporate boards

Ahead of the Christian Democrats’ leadership election in 2018, Heilmann publicly endorsed Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Angela Merkel as the party’s chair.