ZVG elects Eva Kähler-Theuerkauf as its new president

Germany’s Federal Association of Horticulture, ZVG, announced in September that Eva Kähler-Theuerkauf has been elected chairman of the association, commencing 19 September 2024.

ZVG’s member meeting resoundingly voted to have Eva Kähler-Theuerkauf take over the reins of Jurgen Mertz, who has been the industry body’s chairman since 2012.

Eva Kähler-Theuerkauf is co-owner of a lavender, perennials and pot mum wholesale plant nursery in Kempen but was not born into a horticultural family. “But my career grew up in the nursery when I married my husband 30 years ago,” she told FCI magazine in 2022 when she was interviewed.

Kähler-Theuerkauf came from the corporate world of advertisement, and the nursery was a new way of thinking for her. “In all these 30 years, I learned that the nursery is part of our family. We all work together, including the children, and we are only successful if we set our standards like a family. You have to take care of your people, your workers, and you look out for them individually. If they feel good, you feel good,” she said back then.

Kähler-Theuerkauf has been president of Landesverband Gartenbau Nordrhein-Westfalen since 2016 and vice president of Zentralverband Gartenbau since 2020.

She is also chairwoman of the IPM Essen Advisory Board.

Meanwhile, ZVG elected Andreas Kröger as its new vice president.