Prof. Dr. Udo Helmbrecht has more than 40 years of professional management experience in the IT sector.

Udo Helmbrecht was born in 1955, in Castrop-Rauxel, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. 

He studied Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science at Ruhr-University, Bochum, and in 1984 he was awarded a PhD in Theoretical Physics. In 2010 Udo Helmbrecht was appointed honorary professor at the Universität der Bundeswehr Munich, Germany.

His experience in the field of security has been acquired through work in a variety of areas, including the energy industry, insurance, engineering, aviation, defence, and the space industry.  He became the president of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) in 2003. 

Udo Helmbrecht took office as Executive Director of the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) in October 2009.