About

Katrin Kerschbaumer started her legal career in 2005 as a corporate lawyer focusing on M&A transactions in international law firms (Norton Rose and Taylor Wessing) before moving in-house five years later. In her first in-house position at Kabel Deutschland, which she held for more than five years, Kerschbaumer continued working on M&A and general corporate law but focused more on capital markets. In 2013, Kabel Deutschland was taken over by Vodafone and Kerschbaumer describes the transaction as ‘very intense and complex’, ‘I [had] a lot of management attention and strategic questions as well as difficult legal matters. In addition, one had to separate between the professional tasks and the personal concerns in a takeover and restructuring environment. I appreciated a lot the very interesting project and learned that such challenges can lead to opportunities even though the matter at hand seems to be risky at first sight’, she says. Based on her previous experience, in 2015 she was appointed as general counsel (including the chief of the compliance function) by Kontron, a publicly listed company where she had managerial responsibility for the first time. In 2016, Kerschbaumer greatly contributed to Kontron’s sale of its 49% stake in Canadian subsidiary for approximately €52.2m to and a strategic partnership with Ennoconn Corporation (Taiwan). In December 2017, she assumed her current position as head of corporate legal affairs at the MDAX listed GEA Group, leading a team of corporate legal experts. In her current position, she has made a number of positive changes to the legal function, including standardising and implementing work flows in capital market compliance, shareholding management and corporate governance, allowing more efficient and professional legal feedback to the internal clients. In 2018, Kerschbaumer and her team have substantially contributed to GEA’s acquisition and integration of Pavan (Italy), a company with revenue of around €155m and EBITDA of almost €29m prior to the acquisition.