Stefan Willeke, born in Bochum in 1964, studied and earned his doctorate in economic history. Since 2014, he has been the chief reporter of the German weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT. Before that, he was head of the dossier department at DIE ZEIT and then of the society reportage department at Der Spiegel. Since 2017 he has been a member of the editorial board of DIE ZEIT. He teaches reportage at various journalism schools and has been awarded several journalism prizes, including the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize for the best German-language reportage three times.