Richard Lutz was born into a railway family on May 6, 1964. After studying business administration, he worked as a research assistant to the chair for business administration at Kaiserslautern University, where he earned his doctorate in 1998.

Lutz joined Deutsche Bahn AG in 1994. In the years that followed, he held a variety of management and strategic project management positions in the Finance/Controlling Division.

Lutz served as Head of Corporate Controlling starting in 2003. He then became the Management Board Member for Finance/Controlling in April 2010, a position which he held until the end of 2018.

Since March 2017, Richard Lutz has served as Chairman of the Management Board and CEO of Deutsche Bahn AG. Together with his Management Board team, he is pressing ahead with Group-wide implementation of DB's overarching "Strong Rail" strategy. The aim is to make Deutsche Bahn more robust, more powerful and more pioneering, thereby facilitating the shift of traffic to climate-friendly rail. This is not only an important contribution to achieving climate targets, but also to improving people’s mobility, logistical services for businesses as well as European integration.

Lutz is married and has three grown children.