Florian von Heintze is a senior print journalist with extensive experience in reporting, writing, editing, managing and marketing weekly magazines as well as local and national daily newspapers. Until 2021, he was Deputy of the Editor-in-Chief of BILD, Europe’s bestselling newspaper. He now works as a media consultant and an advisor to publishers and communication agencies.
Born into a family of journalists, von Heintze founded a student newspaper at his high school in Hamburg, Germany. He started his professional career in 1981 as the news and political editor for BZ, the largest daily newspaper in then-divided Berlin. He later became special reporter for the Sunday paper BILD am Sonntag. In 1987 he became a foreign correspondent in New York City, covering the US and Canada for all Springer publications in Germany, and was also a member of the White House foreign press in Washington D.C.
After the reunification, von Heintze moved back to Germany and worked as political correspondent for BILD in then-capital Bonn. He later joined BURDA publishing in Munich, becoming deputy editor-in-chief of BUNTE, one of Germany’s leading magazines.
At the age of 33, von Heintze was announced editor-in-chief of the newly founded TVneu, a weekly TV-magazine published by Springer out of Hamburg. He later took over two more of Springer’s TV-magazines, becoming the company’s first “multiple” Editor-in-Chief. He formed one editorial staff out of three to deliver content to three different magazines covering the same market.
After nine years, he returned to newspaper journalism, becoming editor-in-chief of BZ in Berlin. In 2004 he joined BILD as deputy editor-in-chief, where he focused on both editorial content and strategic partnerships, working with advertisers and public institutions.
In 2007, von Heintze launched “Safe our Earth” (“Rettet unsere Erde”), one of the first nationwide environmental campaigns run by a leading media outlet, partnering with Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, the German AAA, and various schools and museums, among others. He also edited and published several book series, including The Year in Review, The Library of Knowledge and The Library of Nobel Prize-Authors.
In 2014 he spent several months in Axel Springer’s offices in Palo Alto and Los Angeles, where he “digitalized” himself and became a visiting fellow at the CCLP.
Before starting his own business, he conducted research in New York City and Los Angeles to develop new television formats for Springer’s recently founded digital broadcast “BILD TV.”
Von Heintze is an alumnus of Aspen Institute Germany. In 2017, he was appointed a member of RAND Europe’s Council of Advisors in Brussels, Belgium and Cambridge, England.