Franca Lehfeldt 📖 Wikipedia

Franca Lehfeldt (born 12 September 1989) is a German businesswoman, journalist, author, and former television presenter. Most-recently she was chief reporter of Die Welt (Axel Springer SE) until her resignation in October 2023 to pursue self-employment.^[1] She previously held a variety of positions at RTL Group.^[2] Lehfeldt is the wife of Christian Lindner who served as Federal Minister of Finance of Germany until November 2024.

Lehfeldt was born on September 12, 1989 in Hamburg, West-Germany to businessman Claus-Holger Lehfeldt, who was active in the real estate and private equity industry through Lehfeldt GmbH.^[3] Her father was born illegitimately through an affair his mother had during the Bombing of Hamburg in 1943.^[4] She completed her Abitur at the Castle Neubeuern boarding-school in 2009.^[5] She then studied business administration and hotel management at Glion Institute of Higher Education in Glion, Switzerland and graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration in 2012. She also holds a master's degree in strategic marketing from the International School of Management since 2014.^[6]

After completing professional studies at the RTL journalism school, Lehfeldt began to work as a reporter for RTL Group. In April 2021, she was promoted to chief reporter of political magazines.^[7] She was employed at infoNetwork GmbH, a subsidiary of RTL, and worked at the headquarters in Berlin, Germany. In 2022, she became chief reporter for Die Welt (Axel Springer SE), a position she held until 2023 when she made public to enter self-employment by founding an agency for communication and marketing.^[8]

On July 7, 2022, Lehfeldt married Christian Lindner (10 years her elder), on the island of Sylt, Germany.^[9] The wedding was attended by several well-known people including Olaf Scholz, Marco Buschmann, Wolfgang Kubicki, and Armin Laschet.^[10] The festivities also made headlines for being "on the expenditure of the tax payers", however was entirely financed privately with exception of additional security measures.^[11] As of 2023, they reside in Berlin, Germany.^[12]

• Nena Brockhaus, Franca Lehfeldt: Alte weise Männer: Hommage an eine bedrohte Spezies. Gräfe und Unzer, München 2023, ISBN 978-3-8338-8739-0 (in German)