Annette Heuser

Taking it upon herself to change the way rating agencies conduct their business, Annette Heuser has become a staunch rating agency reformer and the biggest supporter for a non-profit solution.

As executive director and founder of the Washington branch of the German Bertelsmann Foundation, Heuser has pushed to create a blueprint for a non-profit solution to the big US rating agencies trio. The International Nonprofit Credit Rating Agency (INCRA) came to light through Heuser's efforts and she is now working on making it a viable option for unsolicited foreign-risk assessments which redefines sovereign ratings as a public good.

Heuser previously established the Foundation’s Brussels office and served as its Executive Director from 2000 to 2006. From 1995 to 2000, she was managing European and trans-Atlantic projects for the same company as well as serving as vice president of international relations for a large European media company.

As an editor at a publication covering European political issues and a political science, law and sociology student at the University of Mainz in Germany, Heuser has become a public figure, a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of the European Union.