Head of VDW China Office. Major in Mechanical Engineering, started his career with the leading German machine tool vendor and afterward involved in the Chinese national Aviation project C919 as the Lead Project Planner of COMAC SAMC. Backed to the German machine tool field in 2017 and appointed as the umati Key Account China in 2019.

Björn Frerking currently serves as Head of Asian Business at Siemens Machine Tool Systems. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in Mechatronics from the University of Hannover in Germany. His career has taken him to a number of countries and has focused on automation, machine tools, and power transmission, with experience in serving a variety of industries, including machine building, robotics, aerospace, and automotive. He has experience in product management for hardware and software in Erlangen, Germany, and has served as a Country Manager in Russia, where he was able to contribute to business development. Afterward, he returned to Erlangen to take on Innovation Management. Currently, he is focused on establishing the Asia Pacific Headquarters Hub for Machine Tool Systems in Nanjing, China, with the goal of further expanding the company's presence in the region.

Dr. Sonna Pelz has been working at the department of economics and statistics of VDW since 2020. She is the association’s key account for China and also an expert in international statistics, research and market analyses. Sonna holds degrees in social sciences and economics, including a Ph.D. in economics from University of Hohenheim. As doctoral student she spent more than a year in Beijing collecting data for a Sino-German research project. Afterward, she gained further experience in statistics, market research, and project management across various private sectors, such as retail, media, and international cooperation.