Dr. Rainer Janßen is one of the most interesting personalities of the CIO scene and one of the most important IT personalities in Germany.

He studied mathematics and computer science in Kiel and Kaiserslautern. In 1984 he joined the IBM Science Centre in Heidelberg, where he built up the research areas on scientific computing and super-computing. From 1993 he was Director of the IBM European Networking Centre in Heidelberg, focussing on research, development and customer pilot projects around the information highway.

From 1997-2016 he managed the central division information technology of Munich Re and as Group Information Executive he is responsible for the development and implementation of the global information strategy of the reinsurance group. He is now directly responsible for the global IT organisation of the reinsurance group of MunichRe, encompassing a total workforce of 2000 people (internal and external).

He was member of the supervisory board of MunichRe as representative of the employees from 2004 to 2009.

From 2004 to 2010 Rainer Janßen was member of the board of ACORD, a non-profit insurance data standards organisation. He was named “CIO of the Year 2008” and “CIO of the Decade 2001-2011” by Computerwoche and CIO and in 2014 won the “Global Exchange Award 2014” and was runner-up in the “CIO of the Year 2014” competition. In 2014 Computerwoche named Rainer Janßen member of the German IT hall of fame.

Besides his professional career he has held numerous positions in government and university advisory boards, conference organisations, as well as editorial boards of scientific journals e.g. he was the first non-academic member of the board of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung (German Mathematics Association) from 1993 to 2003. He is also lecturing in Computer Science at the Technical University of Munich since 2006.