Background information on Katharina Borchert, Mozilla Foundation board candidate

Katharina Borchert is the CEO of Spiegel Online, the leading German news site, where she is responsible for the commercial aspects and long-term strategic development of the company.

Katharina was named one of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders in 2011, and was named to the European Commission's "40 under 40" group in 2011.

Katharina studied law (with a focus on humanitarian law) and journalism in Hamburg and Lausanne. She previously worked at the UN Center for Human Rights.

Katharina's work protecting the open web

Katharina worked at one of the world's first print magazines about the internet, first as a writer and then as Editor in Chief.

Later, as an independent writer, she worked for renowned daily papers like the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and IT publications like c't, covering topics that included the socio-political implications of the digital age, online privacy, and internet regulation. She was also one of the first and most visible German bloggers.

In 2006, Katharina joined the WAZ Media Group, one of Germany's largest regional publishers and the owner of several newspapers, more than 80 magazines and radio and TV stations in Germany and across Eastern Europe. Katharina re-imagined and rebuilt their local digital news operations, first as Editor in Chief and then as Online Director.

In 2010 she joined Der Spiegel as CEO of Spiegel Online, the leading German-speaking news site with 12 million unique users, 150 news staff, and online correspondents in Berlin and cities worldwide.

She is also a prolific public speaker on digital issues, appearing at conferences like the DLD (Digital-Life-Design) and university lectures.

Katharina's work with Mozilla

Katharina has been involved with the Mozilla community since 2010.

She delivered a keynote at the 2011 Mozilla Festival, and has been experimenting with tools like Mozilla Popcorn at Spiegel.tv. Der Spiegel has long been an adopter of open source software for their infrastructure, and is currently in talks about becoming the first German partner for a number of new Mozilla developments like the Social API.

The Spiegel Online newsroom also hosted their first Knight Mozilla Open News Fellow in 2013.

Katharina has advised Mozilla on a range of topics around journalism, Marketplace, online advertising, and cookies around the Firefox 22 release.

She has been a member of Amnesty International for 20 years, and is involved in initiatives to get more women into boardrooms and executive positions in the media industry.

• Katharina's bio on German wikipedia (German language)