Kirsten Rulf has been working as a senior advisor for digital, technology, and innovation policy to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and current Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 2019. She is Head of Division for General Digital Policy Issues and “Nerd-in-Chief” at the Federal Chancellery of Germany in Berlin. In her strategic leadership position, Kirsten is shaping Germany’s and Europe’s role in the geopolitics of tech. What does European digital sovereignty mean in a global context? How should Germany navigate the Great Power competition between USA and China?

Kirsten first started to think about these issues during her decade-long career as an award-winning journalist: as current affairs correspondent for Germany’s flagship TV news program “Tagesschau”. She has published extensively on social, economic, and political ramifications of the Internet, social media, and specific technologies, like AI, including for the BBC. She has worked in London, Brussels, Tel Aviv, and Beijing.

Prior to joining the Chancellery, Kirsten was a McCloy Fellow at Harvard University and graduated with a Master of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. She taught courses on cyberconflict, on digital policy, and on compliance and computation at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School. Her first degree is a Masters in Latin and Ancient Greek Literature from Oxford University.