Udo HELMBRECHT

Born in Castrop-Rauxel in 1955, Udo Helmbrecht completed high school in 1974. He then served for two years in the German Federal Armed Forces. From 1976 to 1981, Helmbrecht studied Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science at the Ruhr University in Bochum. Having received his Diploma in Physics, he then went on to obtain a Doctorate in Theoretical Physics in 1984.

Between 1981 and 1983, Helmbrecht worked as a research assistant for the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the Ruhr University. For the following two years, he ran the Software Development Department of the Bergische University in Wuppertal.

Moving to Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm GmbH (MBB) in Munich, the predecessor of today´s EADS, in 1985 Helmbrecht began his career as a systems analyst, working on a German Chinese project. He advanced to project leader one year later. Over this period, he successfully completed a two-year executive management training programme for high potentials. Between 1988 and 1989, he was personal assistant to the Head of the Military Aircraft Division.

In 1990, Helmbrecht was assigned the position of Head of the Technical Data Systems Department and between 1992 and 1995 he functioned as Information Technology Programme Manager, assuming responsibility for the programme and project management of information technology in the military aircraft product group.

In 1995, Helmbrecht was appointed CIO of the Bayerische Versorgungskammer, a public insurance institution for pensions. As Director and Division Manager of Information Processing, he was responsible for data processing, information technology and security, application development, as well as data centre and network infrastructure. Here, he succeeded in introducing several entrepreneurial operating methods.

Since March 2003, Helmbrecht has served as President of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) in Bonn. He has successfully developed the agency´s central service provision for information security within the German Federal Government. In addition, he has spearheaded the cooperation between BSI and the IT security industry, as well as raised public awareness of information security issues.

In October 2009, Helmbrecht took over the position as Executive Director of the European Network- and Information Security Agency (ENISA) located in Heraklion, Crete, Greece.

In November 2010 Helmbrecht was appointed honorary professor at the Institut für Technische Informatik at the Universität der Bundeswehr Munich, Germany.