Katja Suding

Katja Suding (born 30 December 1975, in Vechta) is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). She served as chairwoman of her party's parliamentary group in the Hamburgische Bürgerschaft from 2010 until 2017. Since the 2017 national elections, she has been a member of the German Bundestag.

Katja Suding
Suding in 2015
Leader of the Free Democratic Party in Hamburg
Assumed office
8 November 2014
DeputyClaas Voigt
Preceded bySylvia Canel
Deputy Leader of the Free Democratic Party
Assumed office
15 May 2015
Serving with Wolfgang Kubicki and Nicola Beer
LeaderChristian Lindner
Preceded byUwe Barth
Leader of the Free Democratic Party in the Hamburg Parliament
In office
7 March 2011 – 24 September 2017
Preceded byBurkhardt Müller-Sönksen
Succeeded byMichael Kruse and Anna von Treuenfels-Frowein.[1]
Member of the Bundestag
for Hamburg
Assumed office
24 September 2017
ConstituencyFree Democratic Party List
Member of the Hamburg Parliament
for Blankensee
Assumed office
7 March 2011
Preceded byAngelika Kempfert
Personal details
Born (1975-12-30) 30 December 1975
Vechta, Lower Saxony, West Germany
(now Germany)
CitizenshipGerman
NationalityGermany
Political party German:
Free Democratic Party
 EU:
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
Children2
Alma materUniversity of Münster
OccupationPolitician

Early life and education

Suding grew up in Vechta. During highschool, she spent a year in Logan, Utah in 1993.

Suding studied political science and romance studies at the University of Münster and graduated in 2003 as Magistra Artium. Already during her studies, she moved to Hamburg in 1999.[2] After six years as freelance PR consultant, Suding moved to the Hamburg office of international consulting firm Edelman in 2011, where she advised Diageo.[3]

Political career

Career in state politics

Suding has been a member of the FDP since 2006. Since 2008, she has been a member of the Hamburg state executive board of the party. At the 2009 German federal election she stood unsuccessfully in Hamburg Altona. In December 2010, she was nominated as the leading candidate of the FDP to the 2011 Hamburg state election. The party had failed to gain any seats in the 2004 and 2008 elections, and the polls in 2010 predicted between three and four percent. Under Suding's leadership, the FDP managed a comeback to the Bürgerschaft with 6.7% of the votes, making it the best result since 1974[4] and giving them nine of the 121 seats.[5] Suding herself was elected to the constituency of Blankenese. After the state elections, her party's parliamentary group elected her as its chairwoman. In addition, she served as a member of the Budget Committee and the Audit Committee.

At the national party convention of the FDP in April 2011 in Rostock, Suding was for the first time elected as a member of the federal executive board of the party under the leadership of chairman Philipp Rösler.[6] In 2015, she was elected the party's deputy chairperson (alongside Wolfgang Kubicki and Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann), this time under the leadership of chairman Christian Lindner.

Suding was a FDP delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2012 and 2017. In 2016, she announced that she would leave state politics and instead run for a parliamentary seat in the 2017 national elections.[7]

Member of the German Bundestag, 2017–present

Suding has been a member of the German Bundestag since September 2017. She has since been serving as one of six deputy chairpersons of the FDP parliamentary group under the leadership of its chairman Christian Lindner, where she oversees the group's activities on education policy.[8] She also serves as deputy chairwoman of the German-Italian Parliamentary Friendship Group.

In the (unsuccessful) negotiations to form a coalition government with the Christian Democrats – both the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) – and the Green Party following the elections, she was part of the FDP delegation.

Other activities
  • Alexander Otto Sportstiftung, Member of the Advisory Board[9]
  • Übersee Club, Member of the Board of Trustees[10]

Personal life

Suding is married and the mother of two sons.[11] The family lived in Groß Flottbek.

In 2012, Suding separated from her husband Christian. Since 2015, she has been in a relationship with former professional tennis player Udo Riglewski.[12]

References
  1. FDP parliamentary group in Hamburg Parliament
  2. Andreas Dey (28 May 2015), Katja Suding: "Für mich war das immer nur ein Land" Hamburger Abendblatt.
  3. Katja Suding arbeitet jetzt für Edelmann Hamburger Abendblatt, 13 January 2011.
  4. Hamburger FDP setzt Suding auf Platz eins Norddeutscher Rundfunk, 19 November 2016.
  5. Hamburger Abendblatt, 21 February 2011.
  6. Results at www.fdp.de Archived 17 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. Hamburgs FDP-Chefin Katja Suding: Darum will ich nach Berlin Bild, 18 July 2016.
  8. FDP komplettiert Fraktionsspitze Handelsblatt, 20 October 2017.
  9. Advisory Board Alexander Otto Sportstiftung.
  10. Board of Trustees Übersee Club.
  11. www.katjasuding.de Archived 29 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  12. Katja Suding liebt Ex-Tennisprofi Udo Riglewski Stern, 7 January 2016.
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