About

Christina Sontheim boasts ‘particular legal, communicative and organisational skills’ and observers agree that she has been instrumental in her pro-active guidance of Tommy Hilfiger Group’s expansion not only in Germany, but also in Europe. At the same time she is able to ‘coordinate German legal matters with those of the European headquarters in the Netherlands’. Sontheim is head of legal at Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH), a US fashion company and owner of the brands Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. In her role she oversees all trade mark matters but also other areas such as employment law and commercial and, observers note, has to constantly ‘deal with a major infringement issue across Europe’. She meets this challenge with her admirable ‘visionary foresight’ and has developed a step by step plan which includes market observation and prosecution measures and proves her ability to ‘handle large scale legal issues while taking into account commercial aspects and developing long term solution strategies’. Sontheim is overall ‘able to coordinate a wealth of different proceedings simultaneously’ and ‘to solve any legal issue in a structured manner’. She has also made significant changes to how the legal department works, among them the digitalisation of all files and the acceleration of all internal coordination. This she couples with a way of communicating that ‘enables non-lawyers to quickly grasp what are the legal challenges of a case’, she says. A good in-house counsel does not only have to be a good lawyer but ‘has to be a structured project manager, an emphatic mediator and manager’, she underlines. Law firms have to ‘take the time to phrase their findings in a clear and precise manner, anticipate potential questions and include answers to them and also make suggestions as to how to proceed that don’t only look good on paper’.