Christian Kastrop

Christian Kastrop is President and CEO of the Global Solutions Initiative. He initially joined the organization as Managing Partner and CEO in September 2023, and became President in May 2025. In his current dual role, he leads the strategic direction and global engagement of the initiative.

He brings decades of experience in public policy, international cooperation, and digital transformation. Prior to joining GSI, he served as State Secretary for Digital Society and Consumer Policy at the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection. In this role, he initiated numerous projects aimed at building an inclusive and effective digital society and helped shape key legislative frameworks, including the EU’s AI Act, the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, the Data Governance Act, and Germany’s Network Enforcement Act.

Christian Kastrop also led research collaborations with the OECD and other institutions focused on digital sovereignty, civil society empowerment, and fair distribution of value in digital value chains — all contributing to a digital society that leaves no one behind.

Previously, he was European Director at the Bertelsmann Foundation, where he worked on strengthening European common goods, including digital transformation, defense, foreign policy, and pandemic response.

He also served as Director General at the OECD’s Economics Department in Paris, leading macroeconomic, microeconomic, and fiscal policy work, and supporting initiatives such as Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth and New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC).

Earlier in his career, he held senior leadership roles at the German Federal Ministry of Finance, including Deputy Director General in several departments, and served as President and Vice President of the EU’s Economic Policy Committee, advising ECOFIN and the Eurogroup.

Christian Kastrop is Professor of Public Finance at the Free University of Berlin and a Fellow at the Hertie School. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cologne.