Agenda

12.00pm-12.45pm Registration and lunch 

12.45pm-12.50pm Opening remarks

12.50pm-1.05pm Opening keynote

Timo will open the GC Summit Germany 2026 with a keynote setting the direction for the day. Drawing on his work, The Importance of Human Leadership with Integrity in a Highly Regulated and Tech-Reliant Corporate Environment, he will explore how legal leaders are navigating increasing regulatory complexity, embedding responsible AI, and redefining the role of the General Counsel as a strategic partner to the business.

His remarks will focus on the practical choices facing legal teams today, and how innovation, governance and leadership need to come together in shaping the future of the function.

    • Timo Matthias Spitzer, executive director & head of legal, Banco Santander

1.05pm-1.55pm Building responsible AI in legal practice, in association with Legalfly

Artificial intelligence is already reshaping the role of the general counsel not in theory, but in daily operational decisions. As EU AI Act obligations begin to take effect and GDPR enforcement continuing to intensify, German and European legal teams are undergrowing pressure to move beyond experimentation and build defensible AI governance frameworks.

This panel brings together senior in-house leaders who are actively navigating the transition from pilot projects to enterprise deployment. How are legal teams classifying AI risk, setting internal guardrails, and managing cross-border compliance expectations while still delivering measurable efficiency gains?

Speakers will share practical lessons on vendor oversight, internal adoption resistance, board-level accountability and the evolving mandate of the GC as AI becomes embedded across business functions.

    • Timo Matthias Spitzer, executive director & head of legal, Banco Santander
    • Isabel Ann Giancristofano, director legal and compliance, Condor Flugdienst
    • Mirko Tegeler, group general counsel, head of legal and governance Germany and international, Kaufland
    • Vera Luetzelschwab, legal AI consultant, Legalfly

1.55pm-2.45pm Panel 2, in association with FPS

    • Dr. Carmen Schneider, partner, FPS

2.45pm-3.00pm Coffee break

3.00pm-3.50pm Panel 3, in association with POELLATH

3.50pm-4.20pm Are you designing the future of your legal function – or just inheriting it?

When AI can execute the majority of legal work, what does the lawyer actually become and who in your team is ready for that answer?

When the global rules-based order fractures into incompatible legal regimes, what does it mean to have a global legal strategy?

When technology shifts the balance of capability decisively toward in-house teams, do law firms remain partners, or become a legacy cost?

When the lawyers you need in 2040 don’t look like the lawyers you hired in 2020, what are you building and what are you accidentally dismantling?

When the C-suite stops asking legal to manage risk and starts asking it to create advantage, which functions will lead that shift and which will be left explaining why they couldn’t?

These are not hypotheticals. They are decisions being made right now, by default or by design. This session does not offer answers. It forces positions because the in-house legal function of the future will be shaped by the leaders who were willing to commit to a direction before the path was clear.

    • Dr. iur. Nikolai Vokuhl, group general counsel and chief compliance officer, Hugo Boss
    • Dr. Henning Kuschewitz, group general counsel, Talanx

4.20pm-4.50pm Panel 5, in association with Squire Patton Boggs

4.50pm-4.55pm Closing remarks

4.55pm Drinks and canapes