Dr. Stefan Kaufmann, who was born in 1969, served as Innovation Commissioner for Green Hydrogen at the German Ministry of Education and Research from June 2020 to July 2022. The position was created by the German Cabinet on June 10, 2020, as part of its national hydrogen strategy. In this position, he was a regular guest at the State Secretaries’ Committee for Hydrogen of the Participating Ministries as well as the National Hydrogen Council.

Since August 2022 Dr Kaufmann is working as a Senior Adviser. In one of his mandates he was Hydrogen Executive Adviser to the thyssenkrupp board regarding all cross-business hydrogen activities and projects and represent the company nationally and internationally in all matters related to hydrogen. Other companies he is working for are the global management consultancies Horvath and Drees & Sommer, the Canadian hydrogen production company World Energy GH2, the German Startup Turn2X and the Swiss NGO Green Hydrogen Organization. In May 2025 Dr Kaufmann was elected as the Chairman of the newly established TransHyDE 2.0 association.

Prior to his appointment as Innovation Commissioner for Green Hydrogen, the fully qualified lawyer served as chair of the Study Commission “Vocational Training in the Digital Work Environment” and CDU/CSU spokesperson on the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment of the German Bundestag. Dr Kaufmann has been a directly elected Member of the Bundestag for his Stuttgart constituency from 2009 to 2021. He has been back in the Bundestag from January 2024 to March 2025 - as the successor to the late Dr Wolfgang Schaeuble.