A man of continuity

Worked at Lufthansa since 1974, is married since 1974. Continuity in the life of Karl-Heinz Steinke, member of the ICV-board until 2020. 

He wanted to see the world, so in his youth he decided to complete an apprenticeship as air traffic officer with Lufthansa. When there was no field service opening for the freshly qualified young man, he landed in the “Central Department of Business Administration” of the Deutsche Lufthansa AG by chance in 1974. Karl-Heinz Steinke, member of the Executive Board of the International Controller Association (ICV) until 2020, would leave neither the company, nor the area of business administration throughout his professional life.

At first, he examined the subjects of economic efficiency of flight routes and the economic employment of aircraft in an advisory role. He completed his studies at the distance University in Hagen (Westphalia) while continuing to work and graduated successfully in 1981. Later on, he gained further experience in Investment Controlling, as well as in the Controlling of the Sales and Marketing of the Deutsche Lufthansa AG. His first managerial tasks included the Controlling Management of Deutsch Lufthansa AG’s cargo sector, as well as the project management of a sub-project in the spin-off and independent legal establishment of the cargo sector of the Deutsche Lufthansa Group into the Lufthansa Cargo AG in 1994. Karl-Heinz Steinke then managed the Finance and Account Division of this new company for 7 years, before being appointed as Head of Group Auditing. From 2001 until 2012 he was Head of Group Controlling. His areas of responsibility included the operational group planning, group reporting, and controlling for large projects and investments, as well as the development of risk management systems. At the start of 2013, Karl-Heinz Steinke ended his professional career and he now enjoys some sort of “pre-(non)-retirement”.

 A few years ago, Steinke joined the ICV and its governing bodies due to his close professional cooperation with Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber, ICV Chairman of the Board of Trustees for many years. This is how Karl-Heinz Steinke became a founding member and Head of the newly established ICV expert group “Green Controlling”; he was an active in an ICV project team for the restructuring of the content management system and was elected as a member of the Executive Board of the association at the General Assembly in May 2012. Since 2020, he was Editorial Director of the ICV ControllingWiki. 

Continuity characterises Steinke’s professional and personal path. Married in 1974, this father to two grown-up children has always sought - and found - a balance in his  family life by travelling, hiking, reading and cooking. He has already turned his love affair with Lufthansa into a hobby; as a member of the Executive Board of the Trust

Deutsche Lufthansa Berlin-Stiftung. Here, he primarily dedicates himself to the preservation of historic aircraft and the traditional flight. The world-famous Ju 52 is the flagship and it has now been flying - also thanks to the Lufthansa-Stiftung - for a whole 75 years. When Karl-Heinz Steinke says that “Auntie Ju” will manage another 100 years of flight, one tends to believe it.