Sarah Schmidtke is the managing director at Bankenverband Mitte. It represents the interests of more than 100 private banks in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, which employ around 40,000 employees. Prior to this, Sarah was responsible for managing the Frankfurt office of the European Banking Federation (EBF), focussing on banking regulation & supervision. Before, she worked as Financial Attaché at the British Embassy in Berlin. Prior to joining the diplomatic service, Sarah spent 13 years working for capital markets departments of Commerzbank and Natixis in Frankfurt, London and Paris. Sarah studied at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University. She chairs the advisory board of the European Banking Institute (EBI) and is an advisory board member at the Center for Financial Studies (CFS).