[1] Burda is chairman of the conference Digital Life Design (DLD), which takes place annually in January in Munich.

Burda attended the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, where he studied art history with Hans Sedlmayr, as well as archaeology and sociology.

He earned his doctorate in art history before the age of 26; his dissertation was titled Die Ruine in Hubert Robert's Pictures.

In 1993, Burda collaborated with Helmut Markwort to develop the news magazine Focus, a rival to Der Spiegel.

Under his father the firm's revenues were split broadly equally between printing and publishing, but under Hubert the firm significantly expanded its digital and international operations, including joint ventures with Hachette, Microsoft and Rizzoli and international expansion into countries such as Singapore, Thailand, India, Russia.

In 1999, he founded the Hubert Burda Foundation, dedicated to literature, international understanding, art, culture and science.

Burda has been decorated by German-Jewish interest groups for his promotion of German industrial reparations.

[citation needed] He has been active in building connections between Jews and non-Jews in Germany, promoting close ties with Israel and supporting the revival of Jewish life in his home city of Munich.

In October 1999, he received the Interfaith Gold Medallion from the International Council of Christians and Jews for his services to German–Jewish reconciliation.

In 2005, together with German publishing houses, he initiated the project Paten für Toleranz to support the Jewish Centre Jakobsplatz in Munich.

The Burda publishing company's history during the Third Reich was described by Salomon Korn, a former Vice President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, as a "case study for coming generations as to the question of guilt and conscience, of entanglement and dealing with the burden of this legacy".