Mark Speich

Since September 2017 Mark Speich is State Secretary for Federal, European and International Affairs of the State of North-Rhine Westphalia as well as the state’s plenipotentiary to the Federal Government. 

State Secretary Mark Speich is Chair of the German Delegation to the European Committee of the Regions (CoR). He is also Chair of the Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX), member of the Bureau of the CoR and member of the CoR-EPP-Bureau. In his position as CIVEX-Chair, State Secretary Mark Speich is member of the Fit for Future-Platform of the European Commission and he is a delegate to the Plenary of the Conference on the Future of Europe. 

Moreover, Speich was appointed Co-Chair of the CDU‘s Commission on International Affairs. 

Prior to this role he was CEO of Vodafone Foundation and the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications, Vodafone’s corporate think tank, respectively from 2008 to 2017. Before joining Vodafone Speich served as Director of Policy Planning to the Majority Leader in the German Bundestag and as director of Programmes for the Herbert-Quandt Foundation. In the years 1997 and 1998 he was Personal Advisor to the President of Bonn University. He started his career in the political advisory staff of the CDU’s secretary general in 1995. Speich was educated at Collegium Josephinum Bonn, Pembroke College, University of Cambridge (MPhil) and the University of Bonn (Ph.D.) where he read Modern History, Political Science and Constitutional Law.