Christoph Kehr-von Plettenberg | Perspective & Dialogue

Perspective & Dialogue

International perspective. Informed dialogue.

Based in Frankfurt, Christoph Kehr-von Plettenberg draws on more than two decades in financial services and a longstanding engagement in foreign policy. As Chair of the DGAP Regional Forum Frankfurt since 2017, he convenes dialogue across business, policy and society.

He is interested in how regulation, capital and geopolitical change affect institutions and societies, and in how Germany positions itself in a changing transatlantic order. He values exchanges with leaders in business, diplomacy and public institutions who approach these questions with a long horizon.

Profile

Christoph Kehr-von Plettenberg has held senior roles in financial services for more than fifteen years. He lives in Frankfurt am Main, read law in Rostock, Copenhagen and Cologne, and trained in negotiation and mediation at Harvard Law School.

He has led the DGAP's forums in Frankfurt for more than a decade: the Young DGAP forum from 2014 and, since 2017, the Regional Forum, which brings together some 190 members from business, diplomacy and public life.

Civic Engagement

Christoph Kehr-von Plettenberg has taken on civic responsibility in Frankfurt for more than a decade. From 2015 to 2021 he built up and led a volunteer visiting service against loneliness in old age. During the pandemic he helped organise support for schools, and he has supported a refugee shelter in the city.

Selected press coverage (German)

Außenpolitik näherbringen – Frankfurter Rundschau, 2024

Wärmespender in Corona-Zeit an Schulen – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2020

Ehrenamtliche Seniorenbegleiter in Frankfurt – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2017

Selected conversations

As Chair of the DGAP Regional Forum Frankfurt, he brings together people from different worlds. Each conversation puts a question from one of them to the others: finance and diplomacy, business and security policy.

Climate Policy after Katowice

In 2019, together with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Deutsche Börse Group, he brought the President of COP24, Michał Kurtyka, together with leaders from finance, politics and academia to ask what Katowice means for Germany and Europe.

Transatlantic Dialogue with Ben Rhodes

In May 2020, in the first months of the pandemic, he hosted Benjamin Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Adviser to President Obama, to discuss the geopolitical consequences of the crisis for transatlantic relations.

Ukraine and Accountability

In February 2026 he brought Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk, Chair of the Center for Civil Liberties in Kyiv, together with business and public life in Frankfurt to discuss accountability for war crimes and what European societies owe Ukraine.