Strong assertive women
They are asserting themselves in male-dominated sectors: Fränzi Kühne, Katja Dunkel and Rebecca Richter.
Fränzi Kühne ist nicht nur Deutschlands jüngste Aufsichtsrätin eines börsennotierten Unternehmens, sondern auch Gründerin einer Digitalagentur.
She wears Converse shoes, likes audio-books, Christmas and tulips, and loves watching her favourite TV crime series Tatort. Fränzi Kühne does not exactly fit the cliché image of a business woman. In fact the native of Berlin had never really aimed for this type of profession. Her original plan after completing her law degree was to join the Federal Criminal Police Office. However, things changed when Ms Kühne founded the digital agency Torben, Lucie und die gelbe Gefahr (TLGG) together with two partners in 2008. The agency now has some 200 employees and provides advice to federal ministries and DAX companies on digital transformation. Ms Kühne has been doing the same thing since 2017 as the youngest supervisory board member in Germany in a publicly listed company. She works with the freenet Group as a specialist for digitalization.
In 2019 Ms Kühne left TLGG in order to clear out the cellar, visit a luggage auction and depart on a world trip with her husband and small daughter. Meanwhile, she has returned once more to professional life as entrepreneur, speaker and author. In her bestseller “Was Männer nie gefragt werden. Ich frage trotzdem mal”, Ms Kühne puts an entertaining spin on things that still aren’t running smoothly as far as equality in Germany is concerned. For instance, she asks men questions that are normally only addressed to women, such as: What will the political group chairman be wearing tomorrow at the party convention? Has the CEO ever been promoted for his visual attributes? To what extent is his role as successful start-up entrepreneur compatible with his role as father? Dear Mr Manager, how do you organize your childcare responsibilities?
They work in a conservative, male-dominated world: The two lawyers Katja Dunkel and Rebecca Richter are aiming to create a safe space for women and queer people with their law firm Dunkel Richter.
As a lesbian woman, the Berliner Katja Dunkel has often experienced in her own past how women and people from the LGBTQIA* community have been taken less seriously or have had to justify themselves for their concerns. That is why the two lawyers Katja Dunkel and Rebecca Richter founded the law firm Dunkel Richter on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2021. As the two lawyers put it on their website: “Our vision is to lead a firm based on solidarity, equal rights and moral responsibility. An alternative concept to the status quo.”
The two lawyers are in their early 30s and are bringing a wind of change into the mainly conservative and patriarchal domain of lawyers. “We are proud to be exclusively representing the interests of people who, together with us, want to live in an open and just society. Supporting women and LGBTQIA* people is of special concern to us,” their website says. The law firm specializes in media law and represents mainly clients from the film sector. Nevertheless, they also take up other issues such as discrimination in the workplace, hate on the internet and sexualized violence.
