Melanie Kreis

A trained physicist with a master in business from INSEAD, Melanie Kreis has always had a passion for exploration; she once dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Although the list of German women in space stands at just one, Kreis couldn’t have picked a more globe-spanning company to work for than logistics specialist DHL Group. Joining in 2004, she soon made a name for herself leading the €5.5 billion acquisition of U.K. logistics firm Exel and later the phased, multi-year sale of DHL’s Postbank retail lender to Deutsche Bank. She was promoted to the C-suite in 2014 and two years later became CFO. Last year Kreis helped DHL outgrow rivals FedEx and UPS to become the largest by revenue, at €84 billion, and launched a new efficiency program designed to save €1 billion in costs. In her spare time, she serves as president of an association that represents the interest of all stock exchange-listed domestic companies and promotes the culture of capital markets in Germany.