Management Board of S-Bahn Berlin

Since July 2, 2009, Peter Buchner has been the CEO of S-Bahn Berlin GmbH. After studying business administration at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, he started his career at the Deutsche Bundesbahn in Darmstadt as a project employee in "New Local Transportation" department.

This was followed by tasks as an employee in the business development of public transportation of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and as a project employee at the Usedomer Bäderbahn where he eventually became the managing director in 1994.

In 1996, Buchner became a consultant to the regional divisions at DB AG on the first tenders for rail passenger transport services. In 1997, he moved to the regional division Berlin-Brandenburg of DB Regio AG as Head of Controlling and Human Resources.

In 2000, he became a member of the Regional Executive Northeast in Finance and Marketing. In addition, Peter Buchner was managing director of Busverkehr Oder-Spree GmbH from 2001 to 2010 and managing director of Busverkehr Märkisch-Oderland GmbH from 2009 to 2010. Peter Buchner was chairman of the advisory board of the transport companies in the VBB from 2013 to 2017.

Dr. Mélanie Schäffner has taken up her position at S-Bahn Berlin GmbH as Managing Director Human Resources on June 1, 2021.

A graduate psychologist, she has been responsible for various HR topics in the DB Group for more than 15 years. Among them, she has dealt with topics related to qualification and employer attractiveness and headed the personnel and management development as well as the training area of the DB Bahnbau Group for almost 10 years.

On 1 November 2012, Karsten Preißel took over the management of the production division at the S-Bahn Berlin GmbH. Prior to that, he was responsible for the regional railway operations of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Berlin, and Brandenburg as the regional production executive at DB Regio, Region Northeast, since 2006.

The native Cottbusser is a railroader from the bottom up: After his skilled worker training for railway transportation technology at the German Reichsbahn he worked in Cottbus as a switchman, dispatcher and supervisor, studied railway transportation technology at the University of Applied Sciences in Gotha and went through various stations in Cottbus from the shift supervisor to the head of the Regio branch. Before he came to Berlin in 2005, he moved to the headquarters of DB AG in Frankfurt am Main for a career change, where he worked for the Executive Production Board.

Karsten Reinhardt has been Managing Director of S-Bahn Berlin GmbH since June 2, 2025 and is responsible for Finance, Controlling and IT.

The business graduate has been with the DB Group for over 28 years. His stations range from various controlling functions in DB AG plants to management positions at DB Services and in Group Controlling to DB Fahrzeuginstandhaltung.

In the last three years, he was Managing Director of Finance and Controlling at S-Bahn Hamburg and, in a dual role, a member of the Regional Management Regio Nord for the Finance department.