Kai Wegner was born in Berlin’s Spandau district on 15 September 1972. He is a member of the Protestant church and the father of three children. After finishing school (Carl-Schurz-Grundschule and Hans-Carossa-Oberschule), he performed his military service with Germany’s air force. In 1997, he completed training as an insurance broker and worked with corporate clients for the next two years. He took a position at a family-owned construction company in 1999 and was part of the management team there from 2001 to 2002. He then worked as a business consultant.
Wegner’s career as an elected official began in 1995, when he won a seat in the Spandau Borough Assembly. From 1999 to 2005, he was a member of the Berlin House of Representatives. There he served as the deputy chair of the parliamentary group for his party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). In addition, he was the group’s spokesperson for economic policy. In 2005, Wegner was elected to the German Bundestag, where his roles included serving on the Business and Technology Committee. From 2009 to 2017, he chaired the Berlin caucus within his parliamentary group and for part of that period, from 2014 to 2017, was the commissioner for large cities. From 2018 to 2021, Wegner chaired his parliamentary group’s working group on construction, housing, urban development, and municipalities and was the group’s spokesperson on construction policy.
Kai Wegner is active in many different organizations, including the DLRG Landesverband Berlin (Berlin chapter of the German Life-Saving Association), the Arbeitsgemeinschaft 13. August (a group documenting the history of the Berlin Wall), the Förderverein Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen (a friends’ association of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial), the CDU Mittelstandsvereinigung (an association for small and medium-sized businesses), the Christlich Demokratische Arbeitnehmerschaft (Christian Democratic Workers’ Association), the Unionhilfswerk (a charitable organization), the Reservistenverband (Reservist Association), the Gewerkschaft der Polizei (GdP) and the Deutsche Polizeigewerkschaft (DPolG) (police unions), the board of the InfraNeu Hauptverband (a sustainable infrastructure association), the board of the Lotto-Stiftung Berlin (Berlin Lottery Foundation), the board of the Hertha BSC Stiftung (Hertha BSC Foundation), and the Institut Privater Bauherren e.V. (an association of private-sector builders).
In 1989, Wegner joined the CDU and its youth organization, the Junge Union, in Spandau. He held various offices in this context, such as chair of the Berlin CDU’s organization for high-school students, chair of the Spandau Junge Union, and, from 2000 to 2003, chair of the Berlin Junge Union. From 1998 to 2005, he was deputy chair of the Spandau CDU and then, starting in 2005, its chair. Wegner became the secretary general of the Berlin CDU in 2011 and held this post until 2016. In 2019, he was elected chair of the Berlin CDU and has been a member of the CDU’s national board ever since.
In 2021, Kai Wegner was elected to the Berlin House of Representatives and as the chair of the CDU parliamentary group. On 12 February 2023, he won re-election to the House of Representatives in Berlin’s repeat election and was confirmed as parliamentary group chair. Since 27 April 2023, Kai Wegner has been the Governing Mayor of Berlin.