The Managing Directors, Peter Dortans, Christine Weiß and Dr. Werner Wilke, jointly manage the company.
Peter Dortans
Peter Dortans was born in 1962 and graduated from the University of Cologne with a degree in business management in 1988. From 1989 on, he worked for ESSO A.G. Hamburg in Germany and abroad in the sectors Marketing, Trading, ESSO BENELUX, Controlling, Business Planning for Germany, Switzerland, Austria.
From 1994 on, he directed the Department of Innovation Management of VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH, and in 1998 he became head of Business Management Consulting of VDI/VDE-IT. Since 1999, Peter Dortans has been, together with Dr. Werner Wilke, Managing Director of VDI/VDE-IT.
Dr. Werner Wilke
Dr. Werner Wilke, born in 1959, graduated from the Technical University of Berlin with a degree in physics, with a focus on solid-state physics, medical physics and astrophysics. Subsequently, he worked as a research associate at the Department of Surface Physics at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, following which he obtained a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) at the Technical University of Berlin. From 1990 on, he directed the Product Management Department of the German Auergesellschaft subsidiary of Mine Safety Alliances MSA, Pittsburg/USA, and in 1991 he became authorised signatory.
Christine Weiß
Born in 1969, she holds a degree in mechanical engineering, specialising in biomedical technology. After five years of industrial experience as a development engineer at B.Braun Melsungen AG, she joined VDI/VDE-IT in 2000, initially as a scientific consultant for medical technology. Between 2011 and 2019, she was deputy head of the Demography, Clusters and Future Research division. She then headed the ‘Transformation in SMEs and Industry’ division for six years and was responsible for numerous project sponsorships, most notably the ‘Central Innovation Programme for SMEs’ (ZIM) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. She has been managing director since November 2025, succeeding Dr Werner Wilke, who is retiring at the end of the year.