Chairman

Wolfgang Clement (*1940) has been Chairman of the Adecco Institute, since its foundation in October 2006.

Clement was State Premier of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) from 1998 to 2002 and was German Federal Minister of Economics and Labour from 2002 to 2005.

After completing secondary school, Clement completed an internship at a newspaper, a degree in law and a period as a teaching and research assistant at the University of Marburg in Germany. In 1968 at the Westfälische Rundschau in Dortmund, Germany, he became a political editor, then later head of the political department and finally deputy editor-in-chief. He was the editor-in-chief of the Hamburger Morgenpost from 1986 to 1989.

In 1997, he received an honorary doctorate from the electrical engineering faculty of the University of Hagen, Germany, and in 2004, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Law Faculty of Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. From 1981 to 1986, Clement was the spokesperson of the SPD federal executive board and from 1985 to 1986 also served as the deputy federal party whip. In 1989, the then North Rhine-Westphalian state premier Johannes Rau appointed him head of the state chancellery, from 1990 he was Minister for Special Tasks and after the 1995 state election, Clement served in Rau's cabinet as Minister of Economics and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME), Technology and Transport.

Clement is a member of supervisory boards and advisory boards of several German as well as international companies and is married with five children.