Dieter Kempf was born in Munich in 1953.
After studying business administration from 1973 to 1978 in
Munich, he worked at Arthur & Young (now Ernst & Young) from
1978 to 1991, becoming a partner in 1989.
He then joined Datev in Nuremberg in 1991 as a Board Member,
responsible for product and software development. From 1992
onwards, he served as Deputy Chairman of the Board. In 1996, he
became Chairman, a position he held until March 2016. During
Kempf’s time at Datev, the company grew to one of Europe’s
largest IT service providers.
From 2011 to 2015, Kempf served as President of BDI’s member
association Bitkom (Federal Association for Information
Technology, Telecommunications and New Media). During this
time, he was also Vice President of the BDI.
Dieter Kempf was unanimously elected President of BDI as of
January 2017.
In addition, Kempf serves on various supervisory boards and
advisory boards. He was made honorary professor of Friedrich-
Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2005.