Horst Köhler served as the ninth President of the Federal Republic of Germany between 2004 and 2010. During his career, Mr Köhler was appointed as State Secretary in 1990 in which position he negotiated the German-German monetary union with the GDR leadership. Moreover, he was chief negotiator for the Maastricht Treaty on European Monetary Union, as well as the Personal Representative (Sherpa) of the then Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl for the World Economic Summits of the then G7. In 1993 he became President of the German Savings Bank Association. In 1998 he took the position of the President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London until 2000, when he was proposed as the new Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, DC. He acted in this position until his election as Federal President in 2004.
