About

Markus Gerd Kraemer has served as the group head of legal services for the international operations of ERGO Group for the last seven months. In this short time frame, Kraemer has nonetheless been able to fully complete a new legal department, developing a new structure and implementing it throughout. Reflecting on his creation, he states that he ‘developed the aspiration and mandate of my department and established a dotted line to all international heads of legal’. Kraemer supports the development of the ERGO Group legal function into a globally operating unit and is responsible for the alignment of the local, regional and global ambitions of legal support while being a partner to the local legal departments and businesses, in doing so assuring group-wide governance. Admired for his previous experience in the financial sphere, Kraemer became well respected for his successful tenure with Zurich, a time where he also had to build and shape the legal department: ‘This helped me to understand the economical part of my role as well as the social part as it challenged me to re-shape my department at Zurich‘, explains Kraemer. An example of his stellar influence on the department is its transformation into an independent and flexible division that is highly valued by top management, something that is attributed to Kraemer being a ‘supporter of the modern in-house lawyer‘. Kraemer adds ‘I don’t like to tell my in-house clients that an idea doesn’t work because of some legal restrictions but prefer to show solutions. These ideas I implemented in my team who are now very supportive‘. Kraemer has recently been tasked with focusing on 25 subprojects that digitalise the whole company as well as developing and implementing new product lines.