Dr. Rolf Albach studied chemistry in Bonn and at the Technical University of Munich, where he received his doctorate in 1992 under WA Herrmann in U. Küsthardt's team. After a NATO scholarship at the Université de Paris-Sud under J.-J. Girerd, he joined Bayer AG in 1994 and has worked there since 1998 in management positions in research, application technology, sales and post-merger integration in the Polyurethanes business unit. He is currently leading R&D projects in the field of circular economy, automotive interiors and flame retardancy and also supports dissertations in these topics at domestic and foreign universities. From October 2020, he took on a teaching position at the FH Aachen. Rolf Albach has an MBA double degree from the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management (Vallendar) and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (Chicago).

Rolf Albach has been working voluntarily in environmental policy for 30 years, both for NGOs such as the Local Agenda and the SolarImpulse Foundation and in local and regional politics, for example in the Commission for Regional and Structural Issues of the Cologne District Government, on the Administrative Board of the Cologne Municipal Drainage Company, the Operating Committee of the Cologne Waste Management Company and the Environmental Committee of the Cologne City Council.

Prof. Dr. Sabine Becker studied from 2005-2010 at the Justus Liebig University in Gießen, where she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in 2008 and a Master of Science in Chemistry in 2010. She then completed her doctorate in inorganic chemistry with a focus on polynuclear copper complexes and clusters in the working group of Prof. Dr. Siegfried Schindler. For this purpose, she received a doctoral scholarship from the Chemical Industry Fund (VCI) in 2011 and completed her doctorate in 2014 with summa cum laude. After a postdoc in the same working group for around a year, Sabine Becker joined the working group of Prof. Stephen J. Lippard, PhD at MIT (USA) for a postdoc stay, where her research included the modulation of neurological processes by zinc ions. Her stay abroad was financed by a postdoc scholarship from the Leopoldina - National Academy of Sciences. In May 2017, Sabine Becker took up the junior professorship "Chemistry of Multinuclear Complexes" at the TU Kaiserslautern. From April 2022 to July 2022, she held a visiting professorship for bioinorganic chemistry at the University of Vienna. Since October 2023, she has been working as a university professor (W2) at the RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau. Her research focuses on cooperative effects of multinuclear copper and iron complexes and their catalytic application and on the investigation of metal ions in the central nervous system with a focus on zinc.

Sabine Becker is involved in numerous committees of academic self-government, where she also actively advocates for issues of equality and equal opportunities. In 2020, for example, she received the "Young Scientist Award for Equality and Gender Activities" from the TU Kaiserslautern. In addition, she is active on a voluntary basis for various funding organizations and societies, for example as Deputy President of the GDCh and member of the GDCh Board of Directors since 2024. Since science communication is important to her, she also regularly takes part in outreach activities such as popular science lectures, experimental lectures, children's university, workshops for school classes and MINT fairs.

Katrin Beuthert has been doing her doctorate in inorganic chemistry in the working group of Prof. Dr. Stefanie Dehnen since 2021, initially at the Philipps University of Marburg and since 2022 at the Institute of Nanotechnology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. In addition, from 2019 to 2022 she was the coordinator of the “MINT Summer School for Girls” project at the Philipps University and the women's and equal opportunities officer at the Department of Chemistry.

At the beginning of her bachelor's degree in 2014, she became a member of the GDCh and is involved in the JCF Marburg, of which she was spokesperson from 2018 to 2022. Since 2021, Katrin Beuthert has been Team Lead of the JCF Team for Equal Opportunities.

Since the beginning of 2022, Katrin Beuthert has represented the young chemists in the GDCh Commission for Equal Opportunities in Chemistry and is Chair of the Young Wöhler Association for Inorganic Chemistry. "Through more equal opportunities for students in STEM education, inclusion, diversity and targeted science communication, we can actively help shape a more diverse and open science community and inspire people to study chemistry."

Professor Dr. Wolfram Koch served as Executive Director of the German Chemical Society) from 2002 to July 2024. He studied chemistry in Darmstadt and Berlin and received his doctorate in theoretical organic chemistry under Professors Helmut Schwarz and Gernot Frenking at the Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin) in 1986. Following this, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, and spent several years as a tenured research scientist at the Institute for Supercomputing and Applied Mathematics of IBM Germany GmbH in Heidelberg. In 1992 , Wolfram Koch accepted a professorship in theoretical organic chemistry at TU Berlin, where he taught and conducted research until joining the GDCh. His research focused on quantum chemical calculations of the properties and reactivities of open-shell transition metal compounds, as well as the spectroscopic properties of small molecules. This work resulted in approximately 190 peer-reviewed scientific publications and numerous book chapters. Furthermore, he is the lead author of a textbook on density functional theory (W. Koch and MC Holthausen: "A Chemists' Guide to Density Functional Theory," Wiley-VCH, Weinheim), which has gone through several editions and sold over 5,000 copies. Wolfram Koch is an honorary member of the Czech and Israeli chemical societies, a Fellow of the IUPAC and the RSC, and an Honorary Fellow of ChemPubSoc Europe. In addition to his role as Executive Director of the German Chemical Society (GDCh), he holds numerous honorary positions as a member of the supervisory and advisory boards of several scientific institutions and other organizations. He is a member of the Executive Board of the European Association of Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS), Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) in Hanover, a member of the Administrative Board and the Science Commission of the German collecting society VG Wort, and a titular member of the IUPAC Committee on Publications and Cheminformatics Data Standards. In May 2016, he was appointed to the EU Commission's High Level Advisory Group "Open Science Policy Platform".

Promoting equal opportunities is enshrined as a goal in the GDCh's statutes . Supporting this is a particularly important concern for the former GDCh Executive Director and a motivation for his work on the Equal Opportunities Commission.

Professor Dr. Katharina Landfester studied chemistry at the Technical University of Darmstadt. For her diploma thesis, she worked at the École d'Application des Hautes Polymères in Strasbourg (Professor M. Lambla). In 1995, she received her doctorate in physical chemistry from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz after collaborating with Professor H.W. Spiess at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research. After another year as a group leader at the institute, she moved to Lehigh University (Professor M. El-Aasser) for a postdoctoral position, where she first encountered miniemulsion technology. She returned to Germany in 1998 and joined the group of Professor M. Antonietti at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Golm. There, she led the miniemulsion group, which focused on new methods for synthesizing complex nanoparticles. In 2002, she completed her habilitation in physical chemistry at the University of Potsdam. In 2003, she accepted a professorship (C4) in macromolecular chemistry at the University of Ulm. There she began her work in the field of biomedical applications. Since 2008, she has been a director at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research.

In 1992 and 1994, she received DAAD scholarships for her research activities in Strasbourg. For research in the USA, she received a DFG scholarship in 1996. In 1998, she was awarded the Liebig Scholarship from the Chemical Industry Fund (FCI). In 2001, she received the Reimund-Stadler Award of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) and the Dr. Hermann Schnell Foundation Prize. From 2002 to 2007, she was a member of the Young Academy of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina; in 2003/2004, she served as the spokesperson for the Young Academy. From 2007 to 2015, she was a member of the board of the GDCh Division of Macromolecular Chemistry, and from 2016 to 2023, a member of the GDCh Board. Since 2010, she has been a member of the German Academy of Engineering Sciences (acatech).

After her professional career in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Nimmesgern is now a freelance consultant for career development.

In 1985, she first entered the pharmaceutical industry as a laboratory manager for medicinal chemistry at Hoechst. In 1989, she moved to International Marketing as a Product Manager, where she ultimately headed the global Marketing department of the Vasotherapeutics business unit. Following the merger with other companies to form Hoechst-Marion-Roussel (HMR), she became Head of Human Resources for global research in 1996. After the merger with Rhône-Poulenc to form Aventis in 1999, Dr. Nimmesgern led strategic projects in global research and development. In 2002, she became Head of the global Knowledge Networks Management department for R&D. In this role, she was responsible for knowledge Management, alliance Management , and risk Management. With the merger with Sanofi to form Sanofi-Aventis in 2004, she assumed responsibility for Scientific Relations for R&D Germany.

Dr. Nimmesgern received her doctorate in Organic Chemistry in 1984 under Prof. Dr. Ernst Schaumann at the University of Hamburg. This was followed by a one-year postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Dr. Albert Padwa at Emory University in Atlanta, USA. For this, she received a Feodor Lynen Fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation as well as a Fulbright travel grant.

From 2011 to 2017, Dr. Nimmesgern led the GDCh working group on equal opportunities in chemistry (AKCC) on a voluntary basis, which was transformed into the Commission for Equal Opportunities in Chemistry at the beginning of 2018.

"I am committed to equal opportunities for women and men in chemistry, so that women experience the same visibility, appreciation and opportunities as men - this also means equal pay for equal work, access to top positions in business and universities as well as in politics, and also protection from violence."

Dr. Bianca Schmid works in Market Development Biomarkers at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Berlin. In this role, she is instrumental in driving market research and shaping portfolio synergies across the entire company. Her previous experience as a Lean Manager at Thermo Fisher has given her a broad overview of the entire business unit, and she has dealt with process optimization as well as topics such as cultural development and change Management .

Since beginning her doctoral studies in 2015, Bianca Schmid has been active in the JCF (Young Chemistry Forum) of the German Chemical Society (GDCh). In spring 2017, together with JuWiChem, she organized the "Chemistry in Practice" event on the topic of "Equal Opportunities in Chemistry," featuring impressive speakers from academia and industry. During the 2017/2018 term, she was a member of the JCF's national executive board and responsible for communication with the regional forums, partner societies such as the German Chemical Society (jDPG), and various industry partners. It was here that she first raised the issue of equal opportunities at the national level. Thanks to Bianca's pioneering work, the topic has since become a permanent fixture on the national executive board's agenda.

From 2018 to 2022, she represented the interests of young chemists as a JCF representative on the commission and still holds the vice- Chair today.
Dr. Bianca Schmid has noticed that equal opportunities and mental health are very important issues for young chemists. Diverse career paths and the compatibility of family and career are of particular interest to both genders today, especially in the post-pandemic era. Since 2022, Dr. Bianca Schmid has been supporting her clients as a business coach on these topics.

After completing her bachelor's degree at TU Dortmund University, Dr. Bianca Schmid participated in the Erasmus program at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Sorbonne Université) in Paris, France. She then pursued her master's degree at the Free University of Berlin. Dr. Schmid earned her doctorate in organic chemistry in Professor Süssmuth's working group at TU Berlin.

Dr. Matthias Urmann studied chemistry at Heidelberg University from 1983 to 1989. He also earned his doctorate there from 1989 to 1992 under Professor Günter Helmchen. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA, in the working group of Professor Elias J. Corey, he joined the then Hoechst AG in 1993 as head of the Medicinal Chemistry Laboratory. Following various roles within the company, including Head of Administration for Sanofi R&D Germany, one of the companies that emerged from Hoechst AG, and Head of the Insulins & Peptides Department within the Diabetes Research & Translational Medicine unit, he worked in Business Development for Diabetes External Innovation. From 2018 to 2019, he served as President of the German Chemical Society) and is also active in the GDCh's Medicinal Chemistry Divisions and the Liebig Association for Organic Chemistry .

In addition to his involvement in the GDCh, he is a board member of Science4Life, an initiative supported by the GDCh for many years, which assists young entrepreneurs from the life sciences/chemistry & energy sector on their path to self-employment.