Houben graduated in business administration in Siegen in 1983 with a degree in business administration. Since 1984 he has been managing partner of Arnold Houben GmbH, a medium-sized trading company in Cologne’s Rodenkirchen district.
Political career
Houben has been a member of the FDP since 1983. On a local level, he served on the city council of Cologne from 1989 until 1994 and from 2009 until 2017.
Houben became a member of the Bundestag in the 2017 German federal election. Since January 2018, he has been a member of the Committee for Economic Affairs and Energy, where he is his parliamentary group’s spokesperson on economic policy.[2]