Team size: 4 direct reports + 2 indirect reports

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

Our team was involved in the acquisition by Epta of Hauser GmbH, a renowned Austrian company with a strong presence in the DACH region and in the markets of Central and Eastern Europe. With the completion of the transaction on 1 March, the combined Group now exceeds €2 billion in pro-forma annual consolidated revenues and reaches around 10,000 employees, reinforcing its position as European leader and a key global player in commercial refrigeration.

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

I work closely with senior management and operational teams to prioritise decisions and provide pragmatic legal advice that supports business continuity while protecting the organisation. In a crisis, legal guidance must be concise, timely, and aligned with the company’s risk appetite.

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

To me, it means understanding the company’s priorities, commercial context, stakeholders, and risk appetite, and then translating legal issues into clear and practical advice. A strategic General Counsel does not simply say whether something is legally possible; they explain the risks, options and consequences, so the business can choose the best path forward. It also means being proactive rather than being reactive. This includes anticipating regulatory, contractual, governance and reputational risks before they become problems. Finally, being strategic means building trust with leadership and the business. Legal should be seen as a partner that brings judgement, perspective, and solutions. In this sense, strategic legal leadership combines legal expertise, business understanding, sound judgement, and the ability to influence decisions at the right moment.

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

One experience that stands out as particularly unique and meaningful was setting up the legal function from scratch when I joined my current company (Epta). This required much more than providing legal advice. It meant building a department, defining its role within the organisation, creating processes, setting priorities, and establishing how legal should interact with the business. I had to identify the key areas of legal risk, introduce governance and compliance practices, support contract management, and ensure that the company had a clear and practical legal framework to rely on. What made the experience especially interesting was the opportunity to shape the legal function as a true business partner from the beginning. I could design it to be pragmatic, proactive, and closely aligned with the company’s commercial objectives, rather than purely reactive or procedural. It also required strong judgement, adaptability, and the ability to gain trust across the organisation. Building something from the ground up taught me the importance of combining technical legal expertise with leadership, communication, and strategic thinking.

For me, this experience was particularly valuable because it showed how legal can create structure, reduce risk, and support sustainable growth when it is embedded in the business from the outset.

What do you think are the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel to possess?

A modern in-house counsel must combine strong legal expertise with business judgement, communication skills, and adaptability. In my view, the first important attribute is the ability to act as a business partner, which means understanding the company’s strategy, priorities, risk appetite, and commercial context, and translating legal issues into clear, practical options that support informed decision-making. Another key attribute is proactivity. An effective in-house counsel should anticipate risks before they become problems, especially in areas such as compliance, governance, contracts, regulation, litigation, and reputation. Communication is also essential. Legal advice must be concise, pragmatic, and accessible to non-lawyers, so that the business can act quickly and confidently. Finally, adaptability and resilience are increasingly important. Companies operate in complex and fast-changing environments, so in-house counsel must be able to respond quickly, manage uncertainty, and help the organisation remain both compliant and competitive.