Team size: 6

What are the most significant cases, projects, or transactions that you and your legal team have recently been involved in?

Over the past year, my team has been heavily involved in a broad range of strategic and operational matters reflecting the international and project‑driven nature of the Doppelmayr Group. Key areas included the structuring and negotiation of complex cross‑border contracts for large infrastructure and ropeway projects, often involving challenging regulatory, export control, and local law considerations.

We were also deeply engaged in group‑wide compliance initiatives, including the further development of our Compliance Management System, the rollout of standardized governance frameworks across subsidiaries, and the implementation of group policies in areas such as data protection, risk management, and third‑party compliance.

In parallel, the legal function supported several corporate and organizational projects, including intra‑group restructurings, integration of new entities, and the optimization of governance and reporting structures. Many of these activities required close coordination with management, finance, and operational teams to ensure legally sound yet pragmatic solutions.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

In times of instability, my guiding principle is to combine legal rigor with decisiveness and clarity. This starts with early issue identification and risk prioritisation—focusing on what truly matters for business continuity and decision‑making.

Clear communication with senior management is essential. Legal advice must be concise, actionable, and framed in business terms, especially under time pressure. Internally, we rely on predefined escalation paths, clear responsibilities, and scenario planning, which allow the organisation to react quickly without sacrificing compliance or governance standards.

Equally important is maintaining trust—both internally and with external stakeholders—by ensuring consistency, transparency, and reliability in how legal risks are handled.

General counsel often speak of the need to be strategic. What does being strategic mean to you?

Being strategic as an in‑house legal leader means actively shaping outcomes rather than merely reacting to them. It involves understanding the business model, risk appetite, and long‑term objectives of the company, and aligning legal advice accordingly.

For me, this includes anticipating legal and regulatory developments, embedding legal considerations early in projects, and designing structures and processes that enable the business while protecting it. Strategy in legal work is also about knowing when simplicity and speed add more value than theoretical perfection.

What strategies do you employ to ensure the successful digital transformation of a legal department while maintaining compliance with data protection laws?

Digital transformation must be purpose‑driven. We focus on tools and platforms that genuinely improve access, transparency, and efficiency—such as contract management, knowledge sharing, and compliance documentation—rather than digitisation for its own sake.

From a data protection perspective, compliance is built in from the outset through privacy‑by‑design principles, clear data governance rules, and close cooperation with IT and data protection functions. Ensuring awareness within the legal team and across the organisation is just as important as the technical solution itself.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends other in‑house lawyers should be mindful of?

One clear trend is the increasing overlap between legal, compliance, risk management, and data governance. In‑house lawyers are expected to operate more holistically, combining legal expertise with an understanding of technology, ESG, and geopolitical risk.

At the same time, expectations regarding speed, clarity, and business orientation continue to rise. Legal departments that invest in structure, digital tools, and strong internal partnerships will be best positioned to meet these demands.