director

noun · Geschäftsführer

Geschäftsführer in a GmbH, Vorstandsmitglied in an AG, Aufsichtsratsmitglied where the director supervises rather than manages. Direktor, the machine’s offer, is a courtesy title in German business and no organ at all, and the two-tier system behind the words has no single English mirror.

Which translation, when

Geschäftsführerthe managing organ of the GmbH, representation under § 35 GmbHG, and bound by shareholder instructions, § 37 Abs. 1 GmbHG. The default for managing director.

Vorstandsmitgliedthe AG’s managing organ, running the company on its own responsibility, § 76 Abs. 1 AktG, free of instructions.

Aufsichtsratsmitgliedthe supervising seat, § 111 Abs. 1 AktG, barred from management itself, § 111 Abs. 4 AktG. The functional home of the non-executive director.

Why

One English board holds managers and supervisors side by side, German company law seats them in different rooms. The AG runs the strict version, the Vorstand manages on its own responsibility, § 76 Abs. 1 AktG, the Aufsichtsrat supervises and may not manage, § 111 Abs. 1 und Abs. 4 AktG. The GmbH runs the soft version, the Geschäftsführer represents the company, § 35 GmbHG, and follows shareholder instructions, § 37 Abs. 1 GmbHG, which is why a foreign parent can steer its German GmbH by shareholder resolution and its German AG only through the machinery of a Beherrschungsvertrag, § 308 AktG. Director therefore translates by function, Geschäftsführer, Vorstandsmitglied or Aufsichtsratsmitglied, and never by cognate, the German Direktor is a courtesy title on bank branches and school doors, no statute attaches organ powers to it, and a text that relies on it leaves the one question a German reader must answer, who binds the company, unanswered.

Typical mistakes

Direktor is a courtesy word, no German statute makes a Direktor an organ, and the reader cannot tell from it who binds the company.
The instruction gulf is the real trap, a GmbH-Geschäftsführer follows shareholder instructions, § 37 Abs. 1 GmbHG, an AG-Vorstand is free of them, § 76 Abs. 1 AktG, short of a Beherrschungsvertrag, § 308 AktG, so group governance advice must not treat the two as one role with two names.
Non-executive director maps to the supervisory bench, and an Aufsichtsratsmitglied may not take over management, § 111 Abs. 4 AktG, so board seats translate by function, not by title.

What matters

Group governance memos sort the titles: the parent wants its directors on the German boards. For the GmbH that is Geschäftsführer territory, instructable under § 37 GmbHG. For the AG the memo must split the wish, management seats sit in the weisungsfreie Vorstand, § 76 AktG, oversight seats in the Aufsichtsrat, § 111 AktG, and the English word director, left undivided, promises a control the German default does not include.

Authority

§ 35 GmbHG
§ 37 Abs. 1 GmbHG
§ 76 Abs. 1 AktG
§ 111 Abs. 1, 4 AktG
§ 308 Abs. 1 AktG

What the machine misses

Director glides through the engines as Direktor, a title German business hands out for politeness and German law attaches nothing to. Which organ was meant, the instructable Geschäftsführer, the independent Vorstand, the supervising Aufsichtsrat, is exactly the sorting the two-tier system requires and the cognate skips, and the reader is left holding a business card where the source named a legal role.

Examples

managing director	der Geschäftsführer
member of the board of directors	das Vorstandsmitglied
non-executive director	das Aufsichtsratsmitglied
the directors of the company	die Geschäftsführung der Gesellschaft