Cathleen Berger: Senior Expert

Cathleen Berger brings 15+ years of international, professional experience in various positions of management and leadership. She has worked across all sectors: academia, government, non-profit, corporate, and early-stage start-up and foundation. Her engagement and research focus on the intersection of digital technologies, sustainability, and social impact.

She currently works with the Bertelsmann Stiftung as Co-Team Lead for Upgrade Democracy and Senior Expert on future technologies and sustainability. In addition, she occasionally advises and works with social purpose companies and organisations on their climate and social impact strategies.

Previously, she directed the B Corporation certification process of a pre-seed climate tech start-up, launched and headed up Mozillas environmental sustainability programme, worked within the International Cyber Policy Coordination Staff at the German Foreign Office, as a consultant with Global Partners Digital, a research assistant at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), and a visiting lecturer at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

• Upgrade Democracy

• Präventiv, reaktiv, restriktiv? Maßnahmen gegen Desinformationen aus Sicht der Bevölkerung in Deutschland und den USA
• Zeit zu handeln: Desinformation begegnen, um Demokratie zu stärken
• Time to act: Countering disinformation for stronger democracies
• Preventative, reactive, restrictive? Measures against disinformation from the perspective of populations in Germany and the USA
• State actions against disinformation: Towards a healthy public sphere
• Effektiver Umgang mit Desinformation. Perspektiven von allen Kontinenten.
• Effectively countering disinformation. Perspectives from every continent.
• Staatliche Maßnahmen gegen Desinformation: Auf dem Weg zu einer resilienten und gesunden Öffentlichkeit.
• Disconcerted Public
• Verunsicherte Öffentlichkeit
• The EU Elections 2024: How to build resilience against disinformation campaigns on social platforms
• Potentials of small platforms: What can we learn from them?
• EU-Wahlen 2024: Wie wir resilienter gegen Desinformationskampagnen auf sozialen Plattformen werden
• Bedrohungen für die Demokratie: Klima-Fehlinformationen und geschlechtsspezifische Desinformation
• Threats to democracy: Climate misinformation and gendered disinformation
• Rat beim Beirat: Potenzial von Plattformbeiräten
• Good advice: How online platforms can benefit from social media councils
• Potenziale von kleineren Plattformen: Was können wir von ihnen lernen?
• Decentralization as Democratization: Mastodon as an Alternative to Platform Power
• Dezentralisierung als Demokratisierung: Mastodon statt Plattformmacht

• We “pledge” action: The delay and diffuse tactics of climate misinformation (12.11.2022)
• The Promise of AI: Can It Hold for Environmental Sustainability? (01.06.2021)