Joerg Kukies, Germany's new finance minister, is a former investment banker who has long been one of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's closest advisers, most recently as a state secretary.
The German leader first brought Kukies into the corridors of power in Berlin in 2018, when Scholz was finance minister under Angela Merkel -- a move that caused much consternation in his centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
