Deputy Executive Director, Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF)

Karsten Warnecke is the 6th Deputy Executive Director of the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF). Before joining ASEF he dealt with Germany’s and the EU’s involvement in ASEAN and in the ASEM Process as part of his portfolio as Counsellor at the German Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, where he served as Deputy Head of Division for Regional Organizations and Cooperation in Asia-Pacific.

A seasoned career diplomat with over 23 years of experience, including 14 years with Asia, Karsten is adept at working in cross-cultural settings and in bringing people together from diverse backgrounds. Previous postings have seen him serve in the German Consulates-General in New York and Chennai, as well as the German Embassy in Singapore.

Karsten holds an M.A. in International Relations from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., after studying Political Science at the Free University in Berlin. Karsten, a native Berliner, is bilingual in German and English, and he also speaks (with varying degrees of fluency) Hebrew, Arabic, French and Spanish.

Karsten is married and has two daughters and three sons, ranging in age from twenty-two to three.