Anyone who follows her on Linkedin will already know that Bettina Storck recently became a member of the German government's Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance told Börsen-Zeitung that the Head of ESG at Commerzbank was nominated to the committee in mid-May. She replaces Nicolaus Heinen, who recently moved from Deutsche Börse to the Ministry of Finance.

The Advisory Committee was established in 2019 to advise the Federal Government on its sustainability strategy. It is designed to be interdisciplinary, and 34 practitioners from the financial and real economy, civil society and academia all put their heads together. The aim is to provide policymakers with an assessment of this complex topic – that is as comprehensive and realistic as possible. A task that is tailor-made for the 36-year-old.

Storck was born in North Hesse. Like so many young women, she was already fascinated by culture and languages at school. She therefore added an Intercultural Master's in Communication in European Studies to her au pair year in Paris and her studies in Giessen.

Storck joined Commerzbank in 2011 as part of a traineeship. She says she immediately felt at home there. Apparently, the feeling was mutual. Two years later, the bank offered her a position as a trainee in the communications department.

According to Storck, anchoring sustainability in a bank's processes requires a broad network within the organisation, and communication talent. She has built up this network over the years in the public relations department. She already had a feel for communications, a prerequisite for making a career as a social and cultural scientist within in a financial group. In this respect, the move from the communications department to the head of the ESG division was a logical one.

Storck finally became known to a wider public through an appearance at the side of the then new Group CEO Manfred Knof. The long-standing insurance manager, who had started out as a restructurer after an interlude at Deutsche Bank, recognised the potential of the topic of sustainability early on. And so, at one of his first press conferences, he temporarily gave the stage to the in-house ESG expert, who was as young as she was competent.

It was a good move. Commerzbank seemed to only revolve around itself under the old management, so Storck's confident appearance was like a breath of fresh air. The fact that she had mostly worked in the background up to that point and, like everyone else, had to work on the emerging topic first, was hardly to be noticed.