Stephan J. Kramer has been President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution at the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior and Local Government since 1 December 2015. He has also been Deputy Chairman of Working Group IV (Protection of the Constitution) at the Conference of Interior Ministers since 2018, as well as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Academy for the Protection of the Constitution. In these roles, he is responsible for analysing and countering current threats relating to extremism, espionage, sabotage and hybrid warfare, and is a sought-after expert on safeguarding democracy. From 2004 to 2014, he was Secretary General of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and Director of the European Jewish Congress office in Berlin. During this time, he shaped the Central Council's strategic and organisational development and was active at an international level within leading bodies such as the World Jewish Congress and the Jewish Claims Conference. Prior to and following this period, he held senior roles at the American Jewish Committee in Berlin and Brussels, as well as at the Claims Conference in New York. Kramer has also been active in politics since the 1990s, working as an employee and office manager for several members of the German Bundestag. He was entrusted with issues such as transatlantic relations, Middle East policy, security policy, children's rights, and social change. He has studied law and economics, and holds a degree in social pedagogy and social work. Alongside his full-time work, he has been involved in various committees promoting remembrance culture and democracy. These include curatorial and advisory boards of foundations, memorial sites, and organisations such as the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, the AMCHA Foundation, and the International Weeks Against Racism Foundation. Since 2020, he has been a visiting fellow and research scholar at the Miller Centre for Community Protection and Resilience at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He is a frigate captain in the reserves and has been a specialist instructor at the Mürwik Naval School since 2012, training officers in leadership, politics, and international security policy. He was a long-standing member of the Advisory Board for Internal Leadership Issues at the Federal Ministry of Defence and regularly performs reserve duty in security-related areas. With numerous publications, including in English, Kramer is one of the leading voices in the field of internal security. His most recent work deals with the challenges posed by hybrid threats. He has been giving lectures throughout Germany on topics such as the protection of democracy, espionage, sabotage and economic protection for many years, and regularly appears as a keynote speaker and panellist.