With Angela Merkel set to run the country, Germany's businesswomen hope the country's first Bundeskanzlerin - female chancellor - will do a thing or two to help working women, bring more female power to the boardroom and perhaps raise the chronically low birth rate in the process.

"She's got a raft of problems to deal with - but I hope she tackles the problem that so many women still have to choose between a career and a family in this country," said Regine Stachelhaus, Germany's businesswoman of the year.