New management structure at vdp

Berlin, 3 June 2024

vdp promotes Annett Wünsche and Dr Tim Lassen to expanded management team

Following the departure of its long-standing Managing Director Dr Otmar Stöcker, who has gone into retirement, the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (vdp) has established a new management structure with effect from 1 June 2024.  Department Head Annett Wünsche and Deputy Department Head Dr Tim Lassen have been appointed as new members of the expanded management team. They will work alongside Sascha Kullig, who has been a Management Board member since mid-2020. Operational responsibility for the vdp’s Head Office rests with Chief Executive Jens Tolckmitt.

Wünsche will oversee the departments Real Estate Market and Domestic Real Estate Finance as well as Valuation, while Dr Lassen will take charge of Cover Assets. Kullig continues to head Capital Markets, Investor Relations and Sustainable Finance. Banking Supervision, Communications, IT, HR, Accounting remain the responsibility of Tolckmitt, as does the vdp’s Brussels Office.

“The expanded management team puts the vdp in an ideal position to continue its successful path.” Gero Bergmann

“We are delighted that we can fill the two posts in the expanded management team from our own ranks. Ms Wünsche and Dr Lassen are highly experienced in their respective fields, and our Association has already benefitted from their many valuable impulses. Their new functions give them even greater responsibilities, and will enable them to work jointly with Mr Tolckmitt and Mr Kullig in representing our member banks’ interests in a committed and target-oriented way,” vdp President Gero Bergmann pointed out. “The new management structure puts the vdp in an ideal position to continue its successful path, to develop further, and to master the many challenges that the regulatory environment throws up for the Pfandbrief banks.” 

Tolckmitt added: “I look forward to working even more closely with Ms Wünsche and Dr Lassen in future. Together with Mr Kullig, we make an experienced and strong management team.”

Wünsche (45) has been with the vdp since 2007, performing various specialist and management tasks. Most recently she was responsible, as Department Head, for all matters concerning property valuation for lending purposes in Germany and abroad, with a particular focus on banking regulation. Before joining the vdp, the industrial engineer spent a number of years in urban regeneration and project development. She is a regular speaker at specialist conferences and one of the team of lecturers helping candidates prepare for the certification examination HypZert (MLV).

Dr. Lassen (56) has worked with the vdp since April 2023, first as Senior Manager in the department Legal Affairs / Cover Assets and, since the beginning of 2024, as Deputy Department Head. Prior to that, he was in-house lawyer with the VDH, the vdp’s predecessor association, from 1998 until 2005, where he was involved, amongst other things, in drawing up the Pfandbrief Act. Dr Lassen subsequently moved to Eurohypo AG, at that time the largest vdp member bank, and in the following years carried out various specialist and management functions in Germany and abroad. He then held various management positions while working for an international financial and industrial holding company in Moscow. Dr Lassen is the author of numerous publications on mortgage and covered bond law in Europe. For many years he has been a member of the think tanks “Round Table Covered Bond Legislation” and “Round Table on Security Rights over Real Property”, both of which the vdp initiated.