Board of Directors
Dr CORD BRÜGMANN
Director
He is a lawyer who has practiced law for many years, has served in management positions, and worked as a political consultant. From 2003 to 2018, Dr. Brügmann initially served as Managing Director for Professional Training and Continuing Education and later as Chief Executive Officer of the German Bar Association (Deutscher Anwaltverein). In this role, he represented the professional association in the political and public spheres for over ten years and advocated for the modernization and professionalization of the association's structures.
Dr. Cord Brügmann received his doctorate in 2008 at the Technische Universität Berlin with a dissertation on “Anti-Semitism and decisions of civil courts in the Weimar Republic.” He was involved in the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, where he developed educational programs. Since 2020, he has hosted the podcast “Rechtsgespräch,” which looks at innovations in the legal market and matters related to accessing justice.
Dr Stephan N. Barthelmess
Deputy Director
He is an art historian, curator and a cultural manager with many years of international experience, with a strong focus on the business and corporate management of festivals, cultural venues, and museums also history of art. After studying in the master class of the cellist Csaba Onczay at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest in 1981/82, he studied art history, classical archaeology, and philosophy in Munich and Paris. His dissertation at the Sorbonne in Paris (1995) primarily dealt with the concept of postmodernism and the role of the architecture of museum buildings in the urban context. While serving as a fellow of the J. Paul Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles in 1989/90, and having received numerous scholarships from the French government, the European Union, and the DAAD, his doctoral thesis examined the topic of the urbanization of architecture focusing on museums and cultural buildings and their influence on the development of urban structures.
His training as a cultural manager goes back to research stays in Philadelphia and at the Management Center in St. Gallen. After holding leading management positions at the Pablo Casals Prades Festival, the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz and the Haus der Kunst in Munich, Dr. Barthelmess was Chief Executive Officer of the Kultukreis Höxter-Corvey gGmbH and most recently Chief Financial Officer of the Kunsthalle Mannheim.