Speakers

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

Timo Matthias Spitzer is a distinguished legal professional with over two decades of international experience, particularly in European and Latin American markets. He currently serves as the Head of Legal for Santander Corporate & Investment Banking in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Nordic countries, based in Frankfurt am Main. In this capacity, Spitzer leads a team responsible for overseeing the legal aspects of global wholesale corporate transactions, including syndicated lending, export, trade and supply chain finance, and cash management.

Spitzer’s legal career encompasses significant roles at major international law firms and financial institutions. Notably, he worked at Linklaters Lefosse in São Paulo, Brazil, where he honed his expertise in cross-border legal matters. In 2015, he joined Banco Santander, where he has been instrumental in driving the Frankfurt branch’s commercial growth, contributing also to a doubling of the legal team’s size.

Throughout his tenure at Santander, Spitzer has provided legal support to various sectors, including Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT), Energy, Infrastructure, and Consumer Retail Healthcare. He has played a pivotal role in significant transactions, such as advising Sociedad Transmisora Metropolitana SpA (Grupo Saesa) and Mareco Holdings Corp on acquiring a 99.42% stake in Enel Transmisión Chile through a Mandatory Public Tender Offer valued at US$1.4bn. Additionally, he participated in the team acting as financial advisor to CKD Infraestructura México on equity stakes in three of Coconal’s toll road concessions, amounting to MX$3.5bn.

Beyond his legal practice, Spitzer is a recognised thought leader and educator. Since 2018, he has served as an adjunct professor for International Trade & Export Finance / International Economic Law at the Frankfurt Institute for Law and Finance (ILF). Since him joining, the ILF has continuously been recognised as a Global Top 10 Master program in banking and securities law by LL.M. Guide, ranking alongside institutions like Harvard Law School and Oxford.

Spitzer’s contributions to the legal profession have been acknowledged through various accolades. He was included in The Legal 500 Powerlists for General Counsel Germany in 2017, 2019, 2022 and GC Germany Teams in 2018. In 2018, he received the Santander Group Global WiseLegalSpeakers’ Award. His leadership and expertise were further recognised when he won both the European Counsel Award and the Global Counsel Award in 2019, reflecting his outstanding contributions to the field. In 2024, he won the In-house ESG Champion category at The Legal 500 Germany Awards and the Carsted Rosenberg General Counsel of the Year for Nordics Award.

A proponent of the power of global networking, Spitzer leads an international legal team at Banco Santander, comprising professionals from diverse backgrounds, currently including Mexico, Turkey and Venezuela. His commitment to fostering an inclusive environment underscores his dedication to excellence and progressive leadership.

Spitzer is also an active participant in international legal and business communities. He has continuously represented Santander at conferences organised by the Financial Times and The Economist. In 2023, he addressed delegates from over 20 financial institutions at the Inter-Alpha-Banking School held at Commerzbank, sharing insights on leadership and cultivating a high-performance culture.

In summary, Timo Matthias Spitzer exemplifies the qualities of a highly effective general counsel, seamlessly bridging European and Latin American markets. His profound impact on his employers, the legal profession, and his commitment to diversity and education highlight his exceptional career and enduring contributions to the field.

Leonard Szabó, associate partner, FPS

Dr Leonard Szabó has extensive experience in restructuring and insolvency consulting, focusing on insolvency avoidance, StaRUG proceedings, self-administration, and management liability. He supports pre-insolvency solutions such as insolvency plans and continuation agreements, alongside expertise in commercial, corporate and banking law, particularly credit securities. Dr Szabó also acts as legal representative in commercial disputes, specialising in insolvency contestation, director liability, and insolvency-related criminal defence.

Katharina Imfeld, associate partner, FPS

Katharina Imfeld advises national and international clients, including builders, public contractors, and investors, on all matters relating to private construction and real estate law. She provides comprehensive support for construction projects, including drafting and negotiating contracts with architects and engineers, providing legal support during execution, managing supplements and warranties, and representing clients in and out of court. Other areas of focus include advising on commercial leases, real estate transactions and projects involving renewable energy components. With her Master of Arts in Business, Katharina combines legal expertise with economic understanding to offer practical, strategically oriented solutions.

Dr. Carmen Schneider, partner, FPS

Dr Carmen Schneider has many years of experience in the energy industry. She advises energy suppliers, grid operators, investors, project developers, energy service providers and electricity-intensive companies on all aspects of energy law. Her focus lies on project development in the field of renewable energy – particularly onshore and offshore wind, solar power, electricity storage, green hydrogen and decentralised generation models. She specialises in energy contracts, energy regulation law and energy trading law. Her practice includes drafting and negotiating all types of contracts, including PPAs, direct marketing agreements, energy supply agreements, project and cooperation agreements, and component supply and service contracts. Dr Schneider guides clients on grid connection and usage issues, priority grid access, and compensation claims arising from redispatch measures or under Section 17e EnWG. She handles energy sector M&A and represents clients in arbitration and court proceedings.

Dr. Arne M. Weber, head of power, gas, emissions, MB Energy

Dr. Weber is an energy executive with over 15 years of track record in leading, shaping, and transforming trading, origination, asset optimisation, and sustainability functions. He has held positions with leading European utilities, private equity firms and trading houses. In these roles, he built and scaled high-performing trading platforms and led complex international organisations across Europe, the United States, and APAC. He currently serves as Head of Power, Gas & Emissions at MB Energy, with responsibility for trading, origination, and portfolio strategy across these markets and commodities.

Dr. Weber holds an M.Sc. in Elementary Particle Theory from Durham University and a Ph.D. in Physics from the Max Planck Institute for Physics (Werner Heisenberg Institute) / TU Munich.

Vera Luetzelschwab, legal AI consultant, Legalfly

Vera brings a unique combination of legal expertise and hands-on experience consulting clients across SaaS and tech. At LEGALFLY, she works with in-house legal teams to understand their challenges and guide them toward AI solutions that deliver real, practical value. Her background on both sides of the table – law and technology means she speaks her clients’ language and knows how to turn complex tools into meaningful outcomes.

Mirko Tegeler, group general counsel, head of legal and governance Germany and international, Kaufland

Mirko Tegeler is the group general counsel, head of legal and compliance for Germany and International at Kaufland. He is an acclaimed lawyer with an extensive career as an in-house counsel. Not only is Mirko highly knowledgeable when it comes to legal matters, but his business acumen has made him pivotal when it comes to driving the growth of corporations and transforming internal structures and departments.

Mirko started his legal studies in 1997 at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. Given his passion for economics, he decided to undertake a dual degree incorporating business and economics. Early in his career, Mirko understood that he wanted to be something other than a regular solicitor. He was fascinated by companies and the world around them. Mirko’s education was enriched thanks to experiences abroad in Vienna, Austria and Auckland, New Zealand.

After obtaining the title of LLM in 2009, Mirko secured a corporate legal role at Lidl International, which is part of the Schwarz Group. The legal department was at the time newly founded and only counted three employees. Mirko saw in that the opportunity to expand his knowledge and influence. It represented both a challenge and an occasion working for a company with significant revenue and hundreds of different companies in such a small legal department. Certainly, Mirko was on top of the game. He likes to point out how these first years have given him crucial skills such as dealing with executives and genuinely understanding the structure of a company. After two years, Mirko’s tasks changed to commercial law, and he evolved his new field of practice into a regular legal department within Legal & Compliance. With its department, Mirko provided legal advice on a broad spectrum of topics, such as e-commerce, food law, IT law, M&A, public law, real estate law, and waste legislation. Throughout his ten years at Lidl, Mirko was pivotal in driving the growth of Legal and Compliance and turning it into a crucial internal partner for the business departments.

In 2019 Mirko moved on to Kaufland, also part of the Schwarz Group. Besides the general counsel role for Germany and internationally, he is chief of legal and compliance. The main legal fields of practice in the Legal and Compliance department are compliance, contract law, data protection, IP and real estate law, and regulatory affairs.

Isabel Ann Giancristofano, director legal and compliance, Condor Airlines

Dr. iur. Nikolai Vokuhl, group general counsel and chief compliance officer, Hugo Boss

Kaan Gürer, counsel, Linklaters

Kaan is a partner (as of 1 May 2026) in Linklaters’ Düsseldorf Antitrust & Foreign Investment Group. He has a broad array of expertise in all fields of antitrust law with a focus on behavioural matters, compliance advise and merger control both at EU level and in Germany. His vast experience and set of skills allow him to navigate intricate matters, including investigations, vertical and abuse of dominance questions as well as foreign investment and FSR proceedings. Kaan is very well-versed with the inner workings of the European Commission and the Federal Cartel Office in Germany gathering valuable insights into the latter during his time there as part of his legal training.

Dr. Eva Nase, partner, POELLATH

Eva Nase is a partner at POELLATH in Munich. She specialises in legal advice for domestic and foreign institutional and private investors, listed and private corporations and board members, in all corporate advisory and capital market matters, public takeovers and private transactions, restructurings and corporate litigation. Her clients include national and international corporations, private equity companies and private clients. Since 2001 she has specialised in corporate and capital markets law, as well as M&A/private equity, including for five years in a leading international law firm. Eva is considered a leading expert in her field.

Michael Andreas Haase, counsel, POELLATH

Michael Andreas Haase is a counsel at POELLATH in Frankfurt. He specialises in advising and representing domestic and foreign clients in corporate and capital markets law matters as well as national and cross-border M&A transactions. He also advises clients in particular on corporate governance and corporate housekeeping issues, preparation and implementation of public general meetings, corporate reorganization and structural measures as well as corporate litigation.

Dr. Frederik Ruthardt, partner, RSM Ebner Stolz

Dr. Frederik Ruthardt is a partner in the valuation department at RSM Ebner Stolz. He is a German public auditor, a certified valuation analyst, and a publicly appointed and sworn expert for business valuation. He is a member of the Technical Committee for Business Valuation (FAUB) of the Institute of Public Auditors in Germany (IDW), and a lecturer in business valuation in the context of transactions and M&A at the University of Hohenheim. In addition, he publishes regularly in the field of business valuation. His practical focus lies in business valuations in the context of corporate law structural measures (e.g. squeeze-outs), the preparation of arbitration and court expert opinions, as well as valuation reports according to IDW S 1.

Dr. Sebastian Petrack, partner, Melchers

Sebastian advises clients in IP/IT matters (including unfair competition) and complex disputes. Before (re-)joining Melchers, Sebastian was working with the patent law department with Simmons & Simmons in Düsseldorf.

In IP, Sebastian focusses on providing advice for soft IP prosecution and licensing as well as in infringement matters. He also represents his clients in court, both in preliminary and in ordinary court proceedings.

Sebastian and team are also managing IP rights, a service often used by Melchers’s clients for outsourcing the administration of their IP rights portfolios.

Paul Basse, senior associate, Melchers

Paul advises on all issues of trademark law, competition law, design law as well as copyright law. As a certified specialist in industrial property rights, he has gained extensive IP expertise.

Moreover, Paul is a member of Melchers’ litigation department, which especially contributes to his experience in court proceedings.

Before joining Melchers, Paul was working with an IP law firm in Stuttgart.

Dirk von Diringshofen, associate director legal & head of global trademarks, Stada Group 

Dirk v. Diringshofen is Associate Director Legal and Head of Global Trademarks at the headquarters of the STADA Group. In his role he estbalished the global trademark team on a group-wide level, leading the team of trademark managers. With his team he is responsible for all aspects of the global trademark portfolio and its further development.

Beyond trademark matters, he is leveraging the experience gained in nearly 15 years in private practice as fully qualified German attorney active in the fields of IP & IT law to provide legal services and to enable STADA’s business units around the globe. In particular, he advises in matters related to (soft) IP (such as in relation to licensing, communication, copyrights, trademarks, designs, etc.) but also e-commerce matters, social-media topics, IT law aspects, and more with a strong commercial focus.

Carmen Godoy Martín, events content editor, Legal500 

Carmen Godoy Martín is part of the editorial team at Legal 500, specialising in the in-house legal community and contributing to the GC Powerlist series, the organisation’s flagship title recognising the world’s leading in-house counsel.

In her role, Carmen has led research across multiple jurisdictions and engaged extensively with members of the in-house legal community, providing insight into regional developments and the evolving role of general counsel. Her work spans key legal markets in Europe, as well as Latin America, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. Alongside her editorial work, she contributes to Legal 500’s international events and initiatives, engaging with senior legal professionals globally.

Carmen brings an international and intersectional educational background, holding a dual degree in Law and Political Science and Public Administration from Universidad Pablo de Olavide, and an MSc in International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck, University of London. She has built international experience in communications and global affairs through roles at the European Parliament and other diplomatic institutions.

Steering Committee

Yvonne Schäfer, lead regional counsel – Central Europe, Visa

Yvonne oversees legal operations for Central Europe as well as the Nordics & Baltics and lead a team of talented lawyers. My legal work focuses on enabling Visa’s growth through cutting-edge solutions such as Click to Pay, AI-driven products, and digital payment innovations – while ensuring compliance and strategic alignment as a Legal Business Partner.

Steering Committee

Gabriele Spiess, senior vice president, global field legal, regional general counsel, Middle and Eastern Europe, head of legal department, SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG

With over 36 years at SAP, Gabriele has held several senior leadership roles within the legal function and brings deep expertise in IT law, complex customer contract negotiations, and commercial support for large-scale, strategic projects.

Gabriele currently leads a 37-strong legal team across the Middle and Eastern Europe (MEE) region, overseeing legal operations across multiple jurisdictions and supporting SAP’s commercial activities in one of its most diverse markets. As part of SAP’s Global Field Legal organisation, the team plays a critical role in enabling business growth through pragmatic, commercially focused legal advice.

Steering Committee

Christian Unsinn, general counsel, Omnicom Advertising Group Germany

General Counsel of Omnicom Advertising Group (OAG) in Germany, overseeing all legal matters for the German BBDO, DDB and TBWA networks.

German-qualified attorney with a strong focus on trademark, copyright, advertising, media, music, contract and employment law.