Education
Fuerniss studied at the University of Heidelberg majoring in Political Science, English and History from 1966 until 1971.
Fuerniss studied at the University of Heidelberg majoring in Political Science, English and History from 1966 until 1971.
From 1973 until 1984, Fuerniss worked under Roman Herzog in State of Rhineland-Palatinate, in Bonn with the Federal Government and in State of Baden-Württemberg. After Roman Herzog moved to the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (“Bundesverfassungsgericht”), Fuerniss continued to worked under Lothar Spaeth in the State of Baden-Württemberg. In 1992, Fuerniss left public service to join Systems, Applications and Products AG as the Senior Vice President of International Government and Corporate Relations.
On behalf of Systems, Applications and Products AG, he negotiated and pioneered the first Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE) in China in the early 1990s.
In 1998, Fuerniss campaigned for the Lord Mayor position for the City of Heidelberg, but fell short against Wolfgang Lachenauer and Beate Weber. In 1999, Fuerniss was appointed Economics Minister in the State ("Land") of Brandenburg, Germany under Manfred Stolpe.
He was responsible for development of business and industry in Brandenburg, which surrounds the German capital, Berlin. He was the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the new Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport (German: Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg International), set to be completed in 2011, and was appointed by the European Commission’s High Commission for Economics, Committee for Reorganization and Privatization of Information Technology, Media and Telecommunications for all European countries (1995–1999).
Since 2003, Fuerniss has been a Partner at Alsus, a global knowledge brokerage & consulting firm in Germany, the United States and China.
While in University, he was a member of the Young Union (Jungen Union), the youth organization of the Christian Democratic Union. Fuerniss was a council member of the Christian Democratic Union Faction in Wiesloch in 1984, but then became the Lord Mayor of the City of Wiesloch from 1984 to 1992. He was also a member of the Systems, Applications and Products China Board of Directors.