Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel (né Schäfer; born 1 October 1969) is a former German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as member of the management board of GIZ since 2019.

Schäfer-Gümbel notably was the leader of the opposition SPD party bloc in the Hessian state parliament. He lost his bid for the office of Minister-President of Hesse in the January 2009 Hessian state election, where he had challenged incumbent Roland Koch (CDU).^[1] Schäfer-Gümbel served as deputy leader of the SPD from December 2013. He was one of three ad interim successors of former SPD leader Andrea Nahles in the transition phase.^[2]

This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. (December 2021)

Schäfer-Gümbel was born to a West German soldier stationed in southern Bavaria, in Oberstdorf. However, he grew up in Gießen (Hesse). He briefly studied Agrarian Science at Justus-Liebig-University Gießen, after which he changed to Political Science. Supported by a scholarship of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, he graduated with a Master's degree in 1997, he took various minor political positions.

Schäfer-Gümbel was involved with the Social and Youth department of Gießen from the late 1990s. He became a local adviser to the SPD, a party which he had joined at the age of 17, and was also a local delegate of the SPD in the local government (Kreistag) in Gießen. He quickly moved up the ranks in the Hessian SPD party machine, and was a candidate on the SPD party list during the 2003 Landtag election. He gained a seat in 2003, and has been a member of the Hessian Landtag ever since. He was re-elected in the 2008 Landtag election and in the 2009 special election; however he was elected as part of the party list and not on a direct mandate, as he lost his local race to the CDU candidate.

In late 2008, following a political crisis and Andrea Ypsilanti's resignation, Schäfer-Gümbel became the SPD's party leader in Hesse and the SPD candidate for minister-president of Hesse. However, the SPD fared poorly in the subsequent 2009 special election, which allowed the CDU's Roland Koch to remain in office. Schäfer-Gümbel was the party leader of the opposition SPD from 29 January 2009.

Schäfer-Gümbel was a delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2017. He co-chaired the SPD’s national conventions in Berlin (2011)^[3] Hanover (2012)^[4] and Augsburg (2013).^[5]

In the negotiations to form a Grand Coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian CSU) and the SPD following the 2013 federal elections, Schäfer-Gümbel was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on energy policy, led by Peter Altmaier and Hannelore Kraft.^[6]

In March 2019, Schäfer-Gümbel announced that he would resign from active politics by the end of the year and instead join the management board of German development agency GIZ.^[7] He had been appointed for the job by Andrea Nahles^[8] and kept it until his promotion to GIZ Speaker of the Board in 2022.^[9]

Schäfer-Gümbel is married and has three children.^{[citation needed]}