Craig Budner - Global Strategic Growth Partner, K&L Gates

Craig Budner serves on the K&L Gates Global Management Committee. He currently serves as the Global Strategic Growth Partner. Craig is a frequent speaker at law schools and conferences on law firm economics, project management and business development skills. As a practicing attorney, Craig maintains a commercial litigation practice that includes representing parties in insolvency litigation arising out of failed business transactions. Craig also has experience in litigation common to financial institutions.

Craig received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, cum laude, in 1987 and finished second in the 1987 College National Debate Tournament. In 1990, Craig graduated from the University of Texas School of Law, where he served as Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.

Among his civic and charitable activities, Craig is a Past President of the Vogel Alcove Board, a day care facility for homeless families in Dallas. Craig and his wife founded and is the current Chair of the Dallas Urban Debate Alliance, a program designed to offer debate as an option to inner city students in the Dallas Independent School District. Craig was awarded the 2013 Ann Loeb Sikora Humanitarian Award and the 2010 Prince Henry Navigator of the Year Award for Public Service.

Simon Fish - General Counsel, BMO Financial Group, ACC Chair

Simon Fish is Executive Vice‐President and General Counsel of BMO Financial Group. He serves as counsel to the office of the chairman and the board of directors. He is a member of the bank’s executive management committee. In addition, Simon chairs the bank’s reputation risk committee and the environmental, social and corporate governance committee.

Simon leads over 700 lawyers and compliance professionals in 20 offices across North America, Europe and Asia. He is responsible for the overall legal and regulatory compliance affairs of the bank, as well as the bank’s ethics, ombudsman, special investigations and corporate sustainability functions.

Simon chairs the board of the Association of Corporate Counsel and serves on the boards of a number of companies and non‐profit organizations.

Thomas Laubert - Vice President and Group General Counsel, Daimler AG

Since March 1, 2016 Dr. Thomas Laubert is responsible in his function as Group General Counsel for the worldwide activities of the Legal department of the Daimler AG and its subsidiaries.

Dr. Thomas Laubert has been employed at Daimler AG since April 2004.

He served as Senior Counsel for Legal Corporate at the Daimler HQ and subsequently in a Legal Coordination role for the NAFTA Region in Montvale, USA.
In March 2012, he was appointed as Associate General Counsel for Legal Regulatory Compliance covering Antitrust, Criminal Law and Public Law.

Prior to joining Daimler he woke at Deloitte as a Counsel for Structured Finance.

He holds a PHD in tax law at Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg.

Joanna Nayler - Group General Counsel, Just

Joanna Nayler is a Senior Business Leader, Legal Risk Management Specialist and Award-Winning Group General Counsel (GC Power list 2019). She is an expert in supporting the development and delivery of legal and regulatory issue resolution in corporate environments to mitigate risk.

After beginning her career as a Solicitor in two major law firms, Joanna moved to Hiscox in 2008 as a Senior Claims Underwriter, handling claims at the Managing Agent for Lloyd’s Syndicate 33. She then joined ACE European Group (now Chubb) in 2010 as Principal Legal Counsel, Consumer Lines EMEA before being seconded to Combined Insurance (previously acquired by ACE) in 2011, in the European general counsel role to lead the company secretarial, legal and compliance functions and deal with material issues resulting from intensive regulatory scrutiny. In 2013, Joanna became General Counsel at Partnership Assurance Group plc and was subsequently appointed Group General Counsel at Just Retirement Group plc (now Just Group plc), a FTSE 250 financial services company, following their merger with PA Group in 2016. She has an LLB in English & French Law and a Post-graduate Diploma in Advanced Litigation. Joanna is a member of the Association of British Insurers General Counsel EU Exit Steering Group, the Advisory Board for The Lawyer’s Managing Risk and Litigation Conference and the Women Influence Power and Law UK Advisory Board.

Shannon Thyme Klinger - Group General Counsel, Novartis

Shannon Thyme Klinger was appointed Group General Counsel of Novartis on June 1, 2018. She is a member of the Executive Committee of Novartis.

Ms. Klinger most recently served as Chief Ethics, Risk and Compliance Officer of Novartis on the Executive Committee of Novartis. Before that, she was Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer and Global Head of Litigation. She joined Novartis in 2011 as General Counsel, North America, for Sandoz in the United States and later became the Global Head of Legal and General Counsel for Sandoz International GmbH. Prior to Novartis, Ms. Klinger worked in the US as a partner at Mayer Brown LLP from 2010 to 2011, senior vice president and general counsel for Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc. from 2008 to 2010, and vice president of marketing compliance and associate counsel for Barr Laboratories/Duramed Pharmaceuticals from 2005 to 2007. She was also a partner at Alston & Bird LLP, where she focused on litigation and antitrust, pharmaceutical legal and regulatory matters.

Ms. Klinger holds a juris doctor with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame (both in the US). She is a member of the board of directors of the SIX Group.

Mark Fritz - Founder and Managing Director, Procedor Limited

Mark is a leadership speaker, mentor and professor; and has spoken on leadership and the power of ownership in over 50 countries throughout the world. He is the author of The Truth about Getting Things Done, and Lead & Influence: Get More Ownership, Commitment, and Achievement From Your Team, The Truth About Getting Things Done; and a mentor to executives across the world. Mark has taught in business schools across Europe, and now teaches at the Porto Business School in Porto, Portugal. He has lived and worked in the USA, Singapore, Egypt, Netherlands, Italy, Japan and the UK, and now calls London home along with his Japanese wife.

Sarah Cardell - General Counsel, Competition and Markets Authority

Sarah Cardell was appointed as General Counsel at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in September 2013.   She heads the CMA’s Legal Service which provides legal advice across the CMA’s functions.  She is also a member of the CMA’s senior executive team and is the legal advisor to the CMA’s Board.

Previous career highlights include:

• Partner in the Competition Group at Slaughter and May, where she advised across a wide range of EU and UK merger and antitrust cases.
• Legal Partner of the Markets Division at Ofgem, where her responsibilities included leading on competition law matters.

Laurent Godfroid - Partner, Gide Loyrette Nouel A.A.R.P.I. – Lex Mundi Member Firm

Laurent Godfroid is a partner in Gide's Brussels office, admitted to the Brussels and Paris Bars. He has extensive experience dealing with EU and French Competition Law, be it mergers, vertical and horizontal cartels, abuses of dominant position or state aids, which he has been practicing for more than 15 years.

He is also specialised in analysing EU legislation, and questions of interpretation the latter may raise. On this basis, he assists clients before the European Commission and the French Competition Authority or the Community courts in Luxembourg and also European agencies such as EMA and ECHA.

Laurent specialises in several markets: rail and air transport, oil, agricultural, agro-chemicals, Internet and pay and free TV. Recent cases involve representing Orlen for its envisaged acquisition of Grupa Lotos, Twenga against Google in the Google Search case and Cofigeo for its acquisition of William Saurin.

Laurent holds an LL.M. in international law from the University of Leicester (UK) and an LL.M. in European Law from the College d'Europe (Bruges).

He is recommended in international legal guides Legal 500 - describing him as "solution oriented" - and Chambers Global.

Magdalena Jakubicz - Senior Corporate Counsel, Cisco

Magdalena Jakubicz graduated with honors from the University of Glasgow (Scotland). Magdalena also completed Master’s degrees in the European Union law at the Universidad de Carlos III de Madrid (Spain) and in IP law at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos I (Spain).

Prior to joining Cisco Systems, Magdalena worked at Van Bael & Bellis law firm in Brussels and CMS Albiñana Suarez de Lezo law firm in Madrid. Magdalena moved in-house early in her career and she is currently at Cisco, helping business clients to achieve their goals while ensuring antitrust compliance across EMEAR and Latin America. Magdalena’s day-to-day responsibilities include: designing and delivering compliance programs; co-leading commercial litigations and responses to government inquiries; assisting with merger control fillings; advising on vertical agreements as well as matters related to abuse of dominant position. Magdalena also supports the Brand Protection team from a legal perspective, where she advises on parallel imports and counterfeiting. Finally, Magdalena provides advice on general commercial law matters.

Magdalena is a visiting lecturer on competition law at different Universities in Madrid and a recurring speaker at local and international conferences.

Paolo Palmigiano - Chairman, Association of in-house competition lawyers

Paolo Palmigiano is the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer (EMEA) for Sumitomo Electric Industries, a large Japanese industrial group with operations in more than 50 countries, 250 subsidiaries and more than 300,000 employees. Previously he was the Head of Competition Law at Lloyds Banking Group in London, the General Counsel of the Commission for Communications Regulation (‘ComReg), the regulatory and competition authority in Ireland for telecoms and post. From 2000 to 2009 Paolo headed the Competition and Regulatory team of BT Group plc in London. Paolo is the chairman of the European in-house competition lawyers’ association with 350 members in 23 countries, vice-chair of BIAC (the voice of business at the OECD in Paris) and a non-governmental advisor to the CMA in the UK. He is also a member of the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s users’ group. He was nominated one of the top 40 rising stars of in-house competition lawyers by Global Competition Review.

Elisabeth De Dobbeleer - Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, EMEAR, Cisco Systems Belgium

Elisabeth De Dobbeleer is currently Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, leading the EMEAR legal sales team at Cisco, which is a diverse team of about 60 lawyers.  She spent nineteen years at Cisco in a variety of global and regional roles, leveraging her legal background, but also her change agent, operational and business development skills.  Originally from Belgium, she spent eight years abroad in roles based out of APJC and Middle East and Africa.

In her current role, she leads the EMEAR legal sales team, supporting the business across EMEAR, dealing with transactional, compliance, regulatory and other matters.  As such, she participates as an active and integral member of the EMEAR leadership team, helping to enable growth and profitability initiatives.  Elisabeth also acts as executive sponsor for a couple of key government accounts across Europe. 

Before joining Cisco, she completed her legal training at Stibbe in Brussels, Belgium.

She holds a LL.M. degree of Harvard Law School, and graduated Law School from Catholic Leuven University in Belgium (including a Bachelor Law Degree from Universite de Notre Dame de la Paix de Namur).

Elisabeth is currently based out of Brussels, Belgium. 

Chris Fowler - General Counsel BT Technology and Transformation, British Telecom

Chris Fowler is General Counsel Technology Services and Transformation at BT Group plc in London. Chris is  accountable for the legal support to Technology Services which is the unit in BT responsible for the design, delivery and management of BT’s core network infrastructure, its research and development activities and its internal IT infrastructure. In addition Chris is responsible for transformation within BT Legal & Governance  and is responsible for defining and implementing its strategy, managing its overall budget as well as the central operations team which comprises  finance, vendor management, technology implementation, reporting and communications. Previously Chris was the General Counsel for Commercial Transactions with responsibility for setting and oversight of BT’s group wide contractual risk frameworks. His work in transforming this function was acknowledged by the Association of Corporate Counsel as one of its Value Champions in 2013, cited as one of the reasons why BT was recognised by the FT Innovative Lawyers awards as the most innovative in-house team in 2015 and the Legal 500 as its Telecoms Team of the year for 2018. Prior to joining BT Chris worked in the legal departments of Experian and Volkswagen Audi Group and was called to the Bar by Lincolns Inn in 1994.

Tim Wilson - Senior Account Executive, Mitratech

Tim has more than 20 years’ experience helping Compliance and Legal Operations to digitise their manual processes.

Since joining Mitratech in 1996, Tim has worked with European organisations spanning Commercial, Financial and Public Sectors, to help deliver solutions that prove accountability and provide efficiency savings. With key focuses in areas such as: Policy Management, Matter Management, eBilling and process automation, Tim has helped organisations to cope with the ever-increasing regulatory pressures and the need to prove an ROI to board members.

As a former IT Project Manager, Tim has first-hand experience of the issues surrounding today's regulated society and the need to provide automated processes has never been greater.

Mitratech develops and delivers solutions for legal operations, providing reduced costs, increased efficiencies, and improved compliance.

Mo Zain Ajaz - Chief Operations Officer for Legal and General Counsel, National Grid

Mo Zain Ajaz is the Global Head of Legal Operational Excellence for National Gridand a member of the Leadership Team with responsibility for the COO function including strategy, planning, performance, change and improvement across the Global Legal function. Mo has accountability for National Grid’s Operational Excellence programmes across the function (Risk and Compliance, Assurance, UK / US Legal and Company Secretariat).  He has extensive experience of implementing: legal tech, panel arrangements, demand management systems, benchmarking and strategy.  

Previously Mo was the General Counsel for National Grid Propertyand served as the Director and Executive member of National Grid Property (a commercial subsidiary of National Grid) with responsibility for Legal, Change, Compliance, Business Assurance, Process Management, Communications and Legal Teams.

Mo holds an MBA and has written MSc dissertations focussed on optimising legal operations from embedding strategy win-win supplier arrangements and effective change management in legal functions. 

 

Andrew Pawley - Partner, Aretai LLP

Andrew is an experienced management consultant, facilitator and coach. He specialises in delivering leadership programmes designed to increase levels of performance and engagement.

Focusing extensively on the legal sector, he works with both law firms and in-house teams and acts as a sounding board to a number of Managing Partners and FTSE-100 Group GCs.

Eight years ago, he authored a significant study on behalf of Addleshaw Goddard that explored the leadership challenges faced by General Counsel. The resultant toolkit, ValueDynamics won an FT Innovation Award.

Building on this research, he delivers regular award-winning modular leadership programmes in the UK, Middle East and Africa designed specifically for Heads of Legal / GCs and which explore the typical challenges faced by inhouse legal leadership teams.

Prior to founding Aretai in 2003, Andrew was Partner responsible for Professional development at Andersen across its EMEA region and for Partner Development globally. In this capacity, he was ultimately responsible for the Firm’s learning environment and led the creation of the Andersen MBA, Europe’s largest in-company MBA Programme.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and has an MBA from London Business School with a specific focus on strategy, marketing and OD.

Mark Bearfoot - Legal Director Global Brand Protection, Tommy Hilfiger

Mark Bearfoot is legal director at Tommy Hilfiger where he leads their global brand protection team. He is primarily responsible for developing and implementing the Tommy Hilfiger brand protection and anti-counterfeiting strategy while overseeing the operational activities of his team of lawyers, investigators and brand protection professionals.

Mr Bearfoot began his career in private practice in 1998 before joining The Coca-Cola Company in 2006 where he assisted in the management of their IP portfolio across Europe. He was also responsible for drafting and implementing the Coca-Cola ambush marketing strategy for the 2012 Olympic Games.

In 2013 Mr Bearfoot joined the Harley-Davidson Motor Company where he led their trademark enforcement programme across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. During his tenure at Harley-Davidson, the team won the World Trademark Review Industry Award for Europe, Middle East and Africa Team of the Year and the Global Brand Protection Team Award at the Global Anti-counterfeiting Group Network Awards.

In 2018 Mr Bearfoot was named European Intellectual Property Individual of the Year by the Association of Corporate Counsel and Lexology. He was also one of six industry leaders shortlisted for Global Intellectual Property Individual of the Year.

Mr Bearfoot is a director and council member of the UK Anti-Counterfeiting Group and is an active member of the ICC Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP).

Emanuele Bertoli - Founder, 1TrueID

Emanuele Bertoli, entrepreneur, innovator and founder of BerBrand, don't Imitate Initiate© and 1Trueid, the Internet Book of Things.

Emanuele mission is to create brands that emerge and grow in full respect of zero-waste, sustainability and traceability requirements, in the fight against counterfeit products and trade.

He founded his brand company Berbrand in 2002, starting to process mother of pearl, cultivated in Western Australia in compliance with particular environmental sustainability requirements.

Looking towards a Real time Track and Trace product originality based on RFId in 2008, he developed the first supply chain blockchain in 2009, awarded in 2010

Emanuele is also actively exploring new scalable approaches to reduce the footprint of the Textile Industry’s global supply chain and in this regard continues to work very closely with key influencers and industry players as part of a dedicated working group led by the United Nations

Paolo M. Quaini - Group General Counsel, Alitalia Società Aerea Italiana S.p.A.

Paolo M. Quaini is General Counsel for Alitalia SAI S.p.A. in Amministrazione Straordinaria, based in Rome, Italy. Alitalia is Italy’s largest airline and member of the Sky Team alliance. In 2017 it carried 21.3 million passengers. On May 2, 2017, Alitalia SAI S.p.A. was admitted to the extraordinary administration procedure provided by Italian law for large insolvent companies. Prior to joining Alitalia, Mr. Quaini was General Counsel for OTB S.p.A. (holding company of an Italian fashion group operating under the brands of Diesel, Marni, Maison Margiela and Viktor&Rolf, and – as licensee – of DSquared, Just Cavalli and Vivienne Westwood), General Counsel for Cementir Holding S.p.A. (an Italian group listed on the Italian Stock Exchange which manufactures and distributes worldwide white and grey cement, aggregates and concrete products), Senior Legal Counsel for Parmalat S.p.A. (a food and beverage multinational group listed on the Italian Stock Exchange), and Legal Director for the Plant Making Division of Techint S.p.A. (a multinational group engaged in the business of steelmaking, manufacture of complex infrastructures, industrial plants design and construction, oil and gas exploration and production). Before starting his career as in-house counsel, Mr. Quaini also practiced law for private firms in Italy and, as visiting lawyer, in the US. Mr. Quaini is a graduate of University of Genoa, Faculty of Law.

Alessandro Galtieri - Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Colt Group

Alessandro is Deputy General Counsel at Colt, a Fidelity-owned network services company, active in more than 30 countries globally, with €1.5bn in revenues.

He has extensive experience in commercial and corporate matters in the high-tech space, having held roles at Hexagon AB, Interoute Communications, and the European Space Agency.

Alessandro is an English Solicitor, an Italian Avvocato, an ICSA Associate, and a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/E).  He serves on the Technology and Law Committee of the Law Society, which develops the Law Society's policy on electronic law, and provides guidance on the impact of new technologies on the legal profession.

Alessandro is a UK Country Representative for ACC and a UK Council Member for CLOC, the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium.

Stephen Hurley - Head of Brexit Planning and Policy, British Telecom

Stephen Hurley is Head of Brexit Planning & Policy at BT, where he leads BT’s preparations and public policy response to the challenges and opportunities associated with the vote for the UK to leave the European Union. Prior to his current role, Stephen was a senior lawyer advising BT in relation to all aspects of competition and regulatory law, including leading complex dominance investigations, merger inquiries and litigation.  He also worked as a Référendaire at the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal and as an associate in the London and Washington D.C. offices of the international law firm Freshfields.  He holds degrees in law and economics from King’s College London, the College of Europe and Trinity College Dublin.

Sam Lowe - Senior Research Fellow, Centre for European Reform

Sam is a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. He is also a visiting research fellow at The Policy Institute, Kings College London and a co-founder of the UK Trade Forum. He works on trade issues, with a focus on Brexit, customs and regulatory barriers, and trade in services. He regularly briefs businesses, government officials, politicians and European institutions, including Parliamentary select committees and the European Central Bank. Sam often appears in the media, including the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, The Financial Times, The Times, Politico, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and Sky News.

Simon J. McMenemy - Managing Partner, London, Ogletree Deakins

Simon is an experienced employment and data privacy law practitioner. He was called to the Bar in 1995, and subsequently qualified as a solicitor while working in the employment and incentives team of a major global law firm. He has advised on the employment aspects of many major international and multi-jurisdictional mergers and acquisitions. He also has a wide range of experience in advising companies on change management, particularly in relation to acquired rights, pensions and benefits.

Simon advises on the increasingly complex issues arising on data privacy and data protection in the workplace and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional and a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals. He is a trusted advisor to many employers on all their people management issues and has particular expertise in investigations including those relating to potential business ethics violations.

Simon is a trained mediator and is also a senior reservist officer in the military. He is admitted to practice in England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.

Jonathan Armstrong - Technology and Compliance Lawyer, Cordery

Jonathan is an experienced lawyer with Cordery in the UK with a concentration on compliance and technology. His practice includes advising multinational companies on matters involving risk, compliance and technology across Europe. He has handled legal matters in more than 60 countries involving data breach, bribery and corruption, corporate governance, ethics code implementation, reputation, internal investigations, marketing, branding and global privacy policies.

Jonathan is one of three co-authors of the LexisNexis definitive work on technology risk, "Managing Risk: Technology & Communications". He is a frequent broadcaster for the BBC and other channels and appeared on BBC News 24 as the studio guest on the Walport Review.

In April 2017 Thomson Reuters listed Jonathan as the 6^thmost influential figure in risk, compliance and fintech in the UK.  In 2016 Jonathan was ranked as the 14th most influential figure in global data security by Onalytica in their Data Security Top 100 Influencers and Brands Survey.

In addition to being a lawyer, Jonathan is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing. He has spoken at conferences in the U.S., Canada, China, Brazil, Singapore, Vietnam, Dubai and across Europe. Jonathan qualified as a lawyer in the UK in 1991 and has focused on compliance and technology matters for more than 20 years.

Alejandro Bes - Senior Legal Counsel, Novartis

Alejandro Bes is a senior legal counsel based in Basel. He is in charge of the legal implementation of global Digital Medicine, Real World Evidence and Outcomes Legal strategy for Novartis Pharma. His experience includes dealing with large tech companies, start-ups and other pharma companies. Alejandro joined Novartis in 2018 and previously was in in charge of legal and regulatory affairs for Apple for Southern Europe. Prior to Apple he was an associate for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Madrid and Barcelona.

He oversees a wide range of legal topics, navigating the intersection of the tech and the pharma industries, with a focus on AI, new technologies and big data. He is experienced in complex regulatory and multijurisdictional legal issues.

Alejandro is Spanish, his academic background is in Spain (University of Zaragoza) and US (George Mason), with postgraduate studies in the UK (King’s College) and Italy (Bocconi University). In the past he has been honored as a leading lawyer in his practice, including in Legal 500’s Top GCs in Italy and has participated as invited lecturer in Bocconi University (Milan) on topics regarding the challenges presented by new technologies.

Ellas Papadopoulou - Legal Officer, European Commission

Ellas (Elsa) Papadopoulou works at the European Commission, DG Research and Innovation, Directorate "Health". She deals with legal and policy issues pertinent to data and more specifically health data such as data protection, cross-border sharing of data, the General Data Protection Reregulation, Open Science, open sharing of data, artificial intelligence and cloud technologies.  She also deals with issues emanating from the Nagoya Protocol and the EU Regulation on compliance measures for users from the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from the Utilization (EU ABS).

Elsa studied law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and became an accredited member of the bar in Athens, Greece. She subsequently obtained a Master's degree in Strategic Studies, International Relations from the University of Aberdeen, UK. She has obtained certifications in project and programme management, financial analysis, people, team management and is a member of the European Women Lawyers Association (EWLA).

In the past, Elsa has worked at globally leading consulting firms and a Non for profit entity in Luxembourg and Brussels in the sectors of health & care, transport, energy, climate change, alternative fuels and renewable energy sources. She has worked as strategic and legal advisor, knowledge manager, association manager and public affairs consultant. She disposes of knowledge and experience with business analysis and advice, business plan development, going global strategies, introduction of new, disruptive technologies in the market, financial analysis and evaluation, investment banking and structured finance, international relations and geo-strategic analysis, European and national funding programmes, support to SMEs.

Alex Bishop - National Head of Dispute Resolution & Compliance, Shoosmiths

Alex is National Head of the Litigation Services Team at Shoosmiths. Although she has a broad commercial litigation practice, Alex has particular expertise dealing with business critical issues which include cyber breach/incident response and reputation management and regularly advises on IT disputes and fraud cases requiring urgent injunctive action.

As well as working with in house legal teams and boards on crisis response, Alex also advises companies on the proactive steps they can take in advance to ensure they are best prepared when a crisis hits. Alex is also an accredited corporate governance practitioner so has a good appreciation of the ethics and governance considerations in play when a crisis arises. Having held a number of board positions herself, Alex is well versed at dealing with the media and juggling often conflicting stakeholder interests.

Her clients include large and FTSE listed companies in the IT, retail, automotive and manufacturing sectors.

Alex is identified as a leader in her field of Dispute Resolution/Commercial Litigation by Chambers and Partners and Legal 500.

Neil Laventure - Vice President Legal, Consumer Healthcare EMEA, GSK

Neil Laventure is VP Legal, EMEA, Global Categories and R&D, based in GSK House in the UK. In this position, Neil and his team are responsible for providing legal support to the GSK Consumer Healthcare (CH) business in EMEA, the four Global Categories and Global R&D. He is part of the EMEA Leadership Team.    

Prior to this, Neil was Head of Legal, Asia, Middle East and Africa at GSK Consumer Healthcare, based in Singapore. 

Prior to GSK, Neil was an associate in London in the City law firm Slaughter and May, with a focus on commercial and intellectual property.

Neil holds a degree in Modern Languages from Christ Church, Oxford, and Legal practice qualifications from the College of Law, Guildford, UK.

Steve Leroy - Group General Counsel, United Group BV

United Group BV is a Dutch company that is the largest alternative and privately-owned telecommunications and media company in the Western Balkans, operating in Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia. Since September 2018, Steve oversees all legal matters, as well as all contacts with policymakers and regulators across the territories of United Group. He also coordinates corporate communications and speaks to the media for the overall United Group company.

Before joining United Group, Steve Leroy held a number of leadership roles in legal, public affairs, communications, sustainability, crisis & issues management and business project management at Discovery, the leading real life media entertainment company; at Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest beer brewer; and at global soft drinks icon The Coca-Cola Company.  Before his career in business, Steve was a lawyer in Brussels, and was chief of staff to the Governor of the province of Antwerp in Belgium.

Steve Leroy holds a Master’s degree in Law from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium; a Master’s degree in Commercial & Consular Sciences from Hautes Etudes Commerciales St. Louis (Groupe ICHEC), in Brussels, Belgium; a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from INSEAD, in Fontainebleau, France; and the specialised Master’s degree in EU Competition Law & Economics from the Brussels School of Competition, Belgium.

Chris Philipsborn - Managing Partner, Kreab London

Chris is London Managing Partner and member of the Executive Board at Kreab Worldwide, a global communications consultancy. He has participated on three further management boards across the NGO, public and commercial sectors, including Sellafield Ltd, Europe’s largest Nuclear site and The Salzburg Global Seminar, a foreign policy think tank. He currently advises clients, including governments, corporates, and high net worth individuals on reputation management, crisis communications, broader restructuring and corporate communications. He is Chairman of the AdHoc Council, founded in 1975 to promote high level dialogue between business and policy makers across Europe and the EU institutions, and serves as a trustee of The Disabilities Trust, a leading national charity in the UK. Chris began his career as a journalist and has written for The Financial Times, The Economist, and broadcast for the BBC World Service.

John Morrison - Chief Executive, Institute for Human Rights and Business

John Morrison is CEO of the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB). He has extensive experience working with leading companies on issues of corporate responsibility and human rights. He worked previously with The Body Shop International plc and led the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights from 2003 to 2009. He has also worked for a number of civil society and governmental organisations on issues of migration, human trafficking and forced labour. John has acted as an adviser to a number of governments during their presidencies of intergovernmental organisations and has chaired a wide range of conferences and initiatives in many parts of the world. John advises two UK Government ministers and is also sits on the Sustainability Council of the European Bank on Reconstruction and Development. His most recent book is the "Social License" (MacMillan publishers).

Moira Oliver - Head of Policy and Chief Counsel, Human/Digital Rights , British Telecommunications plc.

Moira Oliver was appointed Head of Policy and Chief Counsel, Human/Digital Rights at BT in July 2015.  She is responsible for BT’s human rights programme in the UK and internationally.  Previously, as BT’s Head of Legal, Corporate Responsibility & Environment, she led BT Group’s UK and international legal teams advising on environmental issues and charity engagement. Moira started her career as a solicitor at the law firm Slaughter and May, specialising in corporate and banking advisory work. She holds a degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford, a Master’s degree in Environmental Law and Practice and is qualified as a Solicitor in the United Kingdom.

Anna Triponel - Business and Human Rights Advisor, Triponel Consulting

A lawyer previously qualified in three jurisdictions (UK, USA and France - currently non-practising), Anna advises international companies, their in-house legal departments, law firms and investors on translating consideration for human rights risks into business processes and actions. She works with a wide variety of law firms and in-house legal teams to equip them with the knowledge and tools needed to position themselves as wise advisors to business. Her work regularly takes her to countries across the globe. Anna served as legal consultant with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, supporting Professor John Ruggie to develop the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and as advisor at Shift – the leading centre of expertise on the Guiding Principles. Prior positions include senior M&A associate at the law firm of Jones Day in New York, where she founded and led the firm’s International Law Pro Bono Group; New York office director of a global pro bono law firm nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize – PILPG; and advisor on the Millennium Development Goals at the World Bank.

James Low - Director Global Investigations and Business Integrity, Unilever

James Low is an investigations and compliance professional responsible for leading the global investigations centre of excellence at Unilever. He has a background in specialist and complex law enforcement investigations within the Metropolitan Police, and more recently leading the Corporate Investigations program at both HP Inc. and Unilever. James is currently leading a diverse, multi-disciplinary group of specialists conducting a wide variety of complex and sensitive international corporate investigations across a variety of business functions. James is developing and delivering Ethics and Compliance training in multiple markets at Unilever with responsibility for the strategy and governance of the global investigations process. He partners regularly with multiple cross-functional corporate teams, as well as with outside counsel, regulators, and law enforcement to protect Unilever from financial and regulatory risk.

Laura Rigo - EMEA Legal Counsel for Litigation and Regulatory Affairs, HP

Laura Rigo is in-house legal counsel at HP responsible for EMEA Litigation and Regulatory Affairs. She advices on Competition law, Litigation and governmental Investigations in the EMEA region and provides full spectrum legal support on several cross-border business projects.  

Qualified lawyer in Italy, she previously spent several years in private practice at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP and a leading Italian law firm, advising Italian and foreign clients on Competition law, EU law, Civil law and litigation. She also gained experience in the regulatory bodies practicing at the Italian Competition Authority and at the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission. 

Ms. Rigo graduated at Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy) and received a postgraduate Diploma in EU Competition Law from King’s College London (UK). She is member of ACC and ICLA - In-house Competition Lawyers’ Association, and she has been awarded amongst the ’30 in their 30s’ Notable Women Competition law Professionals 2017.

Brenton Steenkamp - Managing Partner, EY Forensic & Integrity Services, WEM

Brenton has more than 20 year’s professional services experience across multiple industries including Financial Services, Consumer Products and Manufacturing, Energy and Resources and Telecommunications.

Brenton is a forensic risk specialist and has led significant engagements across risk mitigation projects, compliance reviews & disputes, complex fact-finding investigations (including regulatory reviews) and cyber risk remediation for global blue chip companies. He has provided evidence and testimony in courts and at internal tribunals whilst having extensive experiences in dealing with C-Suite stakeholders, Board of Directors and Shareholders advising on sensitive and complex matters. These include:

• Crisis Management
• Compliance reviews, including to proactively tailor solutions to prevent financial and reputation-based risks caused by non-compliance and irregular activities;
• Global cross-border examinations and fact-finding investigations relating to bribery and corruption and associated regulatory enquiries;
• Dispute analysis, quantifying potential losses and dealing with business interruption; and
• Remediating and preventing technology risks, including managing sensitive data leakages and cyber related incidents.

Charles Cao - Sr Director, Industries and Strategy, Apttus

At Apttus, defined by analysts as the global gold standard for Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) and Quote-to-Cash (QTC) solutions, Charles serves as part of the EMEA leadership team.

Charles was appointed Sr Director of Industries and Strategy to help larger organisations in Europe leverage Contract Lifecycle Management solutions to impact critical business outcomes such as compliance, risk, sales velocity and operational cost. Apttus has over 750 customers to date, many of which are members of the Fortune 500.

Prior to joining Apttus, Charles worked and lived in Singapore, France, San Francisco and London and implemented a global IT project across 45 countries, at Universal Music Group.

Charles holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Master’s degree of Management from EDHEC Business School.

Isabela Pérez Nivela - Vice President Legal for Iberia & Vice President Legal Strategy, Coca Cola European Partners

Isabela Perez Nivela, currently Vice President of Coca-Cola European Partners Iberia, is responsible for Legal Advice, Risk and Compliance of the entity, also acting as Secretary-Counselor. She carries out Pan European responsibilities in advising on commercial strategy and M&A, leading an international team of lawyers. Besides, she holds the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors in Andbank Wealth Management since 2018. Isabela is a State Attorney and during 13 years of Public practice she has held various positions in the Administration and on the Board of Directors of several public companies, holding from 2010 to 2013 the position of Chief of the States Attorney in Catalonia. She is a professor on tax law in Esade. Isabela was born in Zaragoza, is married and has three daughter and she likes cooking and reading.

Thierry Perrouault - Head of Legal Operations, Orange

Thierry Perrouault is General Counsel, Chief Legal Operations Officer of Orange group legal department. The activities of his department are carried out to serve all of the group Legal Department 36 countries of operations and more than 700 employees worldwide.

My-Hué Tan - Legal Director, Electrical Sector Europe Middle East Africa, Eaton

My-Hué is General Counsel to the Electrical Sector EMEA and provides strategic advice on business and corporate transactions. She ensures that Eaton’s interests are protected by identifying and mitigating the legal, regulatory, governance and compliance risks. She manages diversified legal teams and cross-border M&A and restructuring projects. Regionally, she oversees the legal and non-legal vendors sourcing and management, spend, process improvement and the use of technologies. Being a change agent, My-Hué led departmental projects to adopt LPO services and set up an Eaton team in Pune, India to deliver internal off-shoring legal services. She also deployed the Single Law Firm Model and an Outside Counsel Competitive Panel at Eaton.  More recently, she was Legal Director Industrial Sector EMEA overseeing the Eaton Aerospace, Vehicle, e-Mobility and Hydraulic groups. Prior to Eaton, My-Hué worked in Paris at Cisco as Corporate Counsel and in Belgium as Senior Attorney EMEA handling the integration of this acquired video technology business. She practiced in the multinational law firms of Clifford Chance in Paris and London, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, in their Telecoms, Internet, Media, Entertainment and Sport Federations practice groups.

Sophia Adams Bhatti - Operational Director of Legal and Regulatory Policy, The Law Society

Sophia is a public policy and regulation expert, having spent over 15 years in the regulatory and policy arena, working across a range of sectors, including legal services, financial services, economic regulation and healthcare. Sophia joined the Law Society in July 2016 where, as the Director, she leads the Society's legal and regulatory policy team with oversight for policy development across the full breadth of the justice system, engaging with policy makers in government, and partner agencies. Specifically Sophia leads the Law Society’s programme of work on the impact of technology on the law and the justice system and practice of law. She is the creator and lead of the Law Society’s ground breaking Public Policy Commission on the use of Algorithms in the Justice System.

Carolyn Herzog - Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Arm

Carolyn Herzog is the Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer at Arm, the world’s leading semiconductor IP company.  Prior to joining Arm, Carolyn was the VP, Chief Compliance Officer and Deputy General Counsel at Symantec Corporation, the global leader in cybersecurity, based in Mountain View, California, and held prior roles as Symantec’s Head of Legal for Europe, Middle East and Africa region, based in the U.K. Carolyn joined Symantec through the AXENT Technologies acquisition in December, 2000, where she was General Counsel, and was based in the Washington DC area prior to moving to the UK.   

Carolyn has served on the European Board of the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Board for the National Cyber Security Alliance, and is an Advisory Board member to IPWatch System Corporation. Before moving to the technology sector, Carolyn worked in the international development arena, both in the non-profit sector and in the Africa Department of The World Bank in Washington, DC. Carolyn is an advocate for Diversity and Inclusion and has championed women’s initiatives both inside and outside of her company.  She currently lives in the Bay Area with her family.  

Roelien van Neck - Partner, Bird & Bird LLP

Roelien heads Bird & Bird's Commercial Group in the Netherlands and she is based in The Hague.

Roelien focuses on commercial matters in the IT and other technology-based industries. She is a specialist in digital business and technology related contracts. Roelien has a specific expertise in the field of (online) business-to-consumer (B2C) matters and she advises clients on all aspects of trading practices, marketing and advertising.

She also advises on commercial contracts covering distribution, sales, agency, cooperation and procurement arrangements, acting for suppliers and customers. She is a member of our Tech & Comms Group.

Additionally, Roelien is a Board Member at the Netherlands Association of Computer Lawyers (VIRA).

Roelien regularly speaks at internal and external seminars and courses. Roelien is a co-editor of legal journal "Juridisch up to Date" (Legally up to date) and she regularly contributes to other leading legal journals. Roelien is a co-author of the leading handbook "Recht en Computer" (Law and Computer) (Kluwer 2014 – 6th edition).

Professor Burkhard Schafer - Professor of Computational Legal Theory, University of Edinburgh

Professor Burkhard Schafer is Director and Co-founder of the SCRIPT Centre for IT and IP law. He holds degrees in computer linguistics, philosophy, logic and law from the Universities of Munich, Mainz and Lancaster. His main field of research is the interface between law, computer technology and science from a comparative-legal perspective.  He has been PI or Co-I on research projects from the  UK, EU, German and Norwegian funding councils, most recently the RCUK funded large research network on Copyright in the Digital Economy CREATE, where he also served on the management board.  He has published more than 100 papers in the field of law and technology, working closely with research users in the legal service industry and the police. He is member of the Data Ethics Group  of the Alan Turing Institute and member of the European Initiative for AI4Society.  . He has been consulted as expert by the UK government on the regulation of automated cars, the government of Washington State on the regulation of civilian drones and the Scottish Law Commission on Data Protection law and the right to a fair trial.

Roberta Di Nanni - Senior Legal Product Expert, Luminance

Roberta Di Nanni is an Italian lawyer and mediator. After qualifying, she moved to the United States. She lived and worked in New York and graduated from the LL.M. program in International Legal Studies of New York University School of Law. She currently works in London as a Senior Legal Product Expert for Luminance, the AI leading platform for the legal industry, a position that gives her privileged insights into the exciting world of legal tech.

 

Jessica Jacob - Co-founder, CEO and CLO, Komply LLC

Jessica Jacob is the co-founder, CEO, and Chief Legal Officer for Komply, a company that is using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, including natural language processing, to crack the code of legalese.

Jessica previously leveraged her passion for legal data and process automation as General Counsel of Merchant e-Solutions and at other technology companies in the fintech and sharing economy verticals. She is also a volunteer attorney and board member for the Justice and Diversity Center, which provides pro bono services to more than 9,500 disadvantaged clients each year.

When she isn’t achieving total legal data domination, Jessica can be found enjoying all the natural splendor and arts available to her in San Francisco: hikes in a bevy of microclimates, every imaginable type of cuisine, and a variety of performing arts.

 

Laura Pavese - Senior Litigation Manager, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Laura Pavese serves as Senior Litigation Manager at Hewlett Packard Enterprise with responsibility of the litigation portfolio across multiple countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa (Italy, Greece, Israel, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, MEMA, CEE and Russia). She is based in Milan and she is responsible in her role to manage directly significant litigation dockets (>$2M or Sensitive by the Corporation) and to support country counsels on the overall litigation portfolio (case strategy, legal and financial risk assessment). Laura oversees the relevant reporting corporate duties (EFR/Quarterly Reporting/Auditors) and manages the Outside Counsels (including litigation budgets) within the jurisdictions in scope on litigation cases typical to the IT Sector (Services, Products and IP).

She joined HPE (HP up to 2015) in 2009 and previously held a number of senior attorney positions in Electronic Data Systems (EDS- now DXC) and Philips Automation S.p.A. (now Project Automation Spa). Her roles included business support on complex IPT- IT Services Outsourcing Projects and M&A, including Human Resources function support on Employment, and Union related legislation. Prior to being an in-house counsel, Laura worked in boutique private practices in Milan and London (Traverso & Associati, Pavia & Ansaldo, Pritchard & Englefield).

Laura Pavese has an Italian university law degree (Università degli Studi di Milano) and she is counsel admitted at the Milan Bar. As German mother tongue, she received her school education and A-Level at the Milan German School.

Andrew Pawley - Partner, Aretai LLP

Andrew is an experienced management consultant, facilitator and coach. He specialises in delivering leadership programmes designed to increase levels of performance and engagement.

Focusing extensively on the legal sector, he works with both law firms and in-house teams and acts as a sounding board to a number of Managing Partners and FTSE-100 Group GCs.

Eight years ago, he authored a significant study on behalf of Addleshaw Goddard that explored the leadership challenges faced by General Counsel. The resultant toolkit, ValueDynamics won an FT Innovation Award.

Building on this research, he delivers regular award-winning modular leadership programmes in the UK, Middle East and Africa designed specifically for Heads of Legal / GCs and which explore the typical challenges faced by inhouse legal leadership teams.

Prior to founding Aretai in 2003, Andrew was Partner responsible for Professional development at Andersen across its EMEA region and for Partner Development globally. In this capacity, he was ultimately responsible for the Firm’s learning environment and led the creation of the Andersen MBA, Europe’s largest in-company MBA Programme.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and has an MBA from London Business School with a specific focus on strategy, marketing and OD.

Jeff Bullwinkel - Associate General Counsel and Regional Director of Corporate, Legal and External Affairs Microsoft Europe, Microsoft Europe

Jeff Bullwinkel serves as Microsoft’s Associate General Counsel and Regional Director of Corporate, External & Legal Affairs for Europe.  He is based in Amsterdam and oversees the company’s legal and corporate affairs teams across the region, providing support for commercial transactions and regulatorycounsel on public policy issues such as IPR, cybersecurity, competition, and international trade.  Mr. Bullwinkel joined Microsoft in 2000 and previously held a number of senior roles with the company across the Asia Pacific region, based in Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney.    

Prior to joining Microsoft, Mr. Bullwinkel was with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, an international law firm based in New York.  Mr. Bullwinkel also served as a federal prosecutor with the Office of International Affairs, Criminal Division, US Department of Justice, where he was responsible for a wide range of matters relating to international law. 

Mr. Bullwinkel is originally from the New York area.  He graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Arts degree and received his law degree from New York University.  He is a member of the New York State Bar. 

Susan Fahringer - Partner, Perkins Coie

Susan Fahringer, a partner in Perkins Coie’s Privacy and Security group, has over 25 years of experience litigating cases in state and federal courts throughout the United States. Susan counsels and defends some of the world’s leading innovators in privacy, IP and complex commercial litigation, and has extensive experience defending consumer class actions in areas involving privacy and biometrics. Susan represents companies across a broad array of industries in matters involving complex and strategic business disputes, from contract disputes to claims for unfair competition, misrepresentation and other business torts. She regularly counsels and represents clients in IP litigation matters as well, including trade secret and copyright disputes, and she provides strategic advice to companies on best practices and approaches to mitigating litigation risk.

Susan has served on Perkins Coie’s Management Committee and Executive Committee and as co-chair of the firm's Intellectual Property Litigation practice. She currently serves as co-chair of the firm’s Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and Robotics industry group.

Susan has been listed in;

• The Best Lawyers in America 2010 - Present: Commercial Litigation; Litigation - Intellectual Property; Litigation - Patent
• Super Lawyers Magazine, "Washington’s Super Lawyers," 2000 - Present
• and Washington Law & Politics, "Top 50 Washington Female Super Lawyers" and "Rising Stars," 1999

Lorena Marciano - Director - EMEAR Data Protection and Privacy Officer, Cisco

Lorena Marciano is EMEAR Data Protection and Privacy Officer at Cisco Systems. She joined Cisco as Senior Corporate Counsel in 2014 and then later has been appointed as their first Privacy Officer responsible for the entire EMEAR Region including Russia. She is responsible for overseeing the risk management, data protection program implementation as well as external relationships for the Region.

Prior to joining Cisco, she has been working eight years for top tier national and international firms in Italy, Belgium and US with main focus on Data Protection and Privacy, Intellectual Property and Competition law. During this time she was also part of a European Data Protection and Technology Law Think Thank, providing independent policy advice on regulatory framework. Lorena is an Italian qualified lawyer and holds a Law Degree from University of Rome and a LLM in Intellectual Property and Technology Law from the University of Akron, US – School of law.

She served also as Board Member of the European Advisory Board of the IAPP – International Association of Privacy Professionals and she holds qualified certifications as CIPP/E and CIPM, as well as FIP.

Senior representative - GCHQ, National Cyber Security Centre

The NCSC was set up to help protect our critical services from cyber attacks, manage major incidents, and improve the underlying security of the UK Internet through technological improvement and advice to citizens and organisations. Its vision is to help make the UK the safest place to live and do business online.

Gerard Berghuis - Senior Associate General Counsel and Director International, IDEXX

Gerard is a General Counsel, Senior Executive, Statutory Director and Attorney at law with broad experience and educational academic background (Law and Executive Business Administration degrees) and with international leadership experience in the Telecommunication, ICT, Automotive/Manufacturing, Retail industries and Healthcare Diagnostic industry. Operating in a multinational environment (including US Fortune 500 organisations) and overseeing Legal affairs across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

Specialties: International Commercial Law, Litigation. Qualified as a lawyer in the Netherlands. Executive Master in Business Administration degree in the United Kingdom (Bradford University). Speaker at industry events.

Stephen Hopkins - Head of Global Client Development, Eversheds

Stephen has been a corporate partner with Eversheds Sutherland since 1991. In 2007 he was appointed as client partner for the ground breaking Tyco relationship.

Head of International for Eversheds Sutherland in 2009 overseeing the nascent international firm develop into a global player with 67 offices and more than 5000 people.

Shortlisted in the 2016 Financial Times Legal Innovation Awards as Legal Innovator of the year and in 2014 was honoured as one of the top 50 innovators in law in the last 50 years by the American Lawyer magazine alongside peers including Hillary Clinton.

Stephen won the 2015 and 2017 Client Choice awards for UK corporate, nominated and voted by in house counsel. Also a major force in Eversheds Sutherland winning the MENA Counsel Visionary Law Firm Award 2016 and 2017.

Spearheading the Eversheds Sutherland relationship with Turkish Airlines undertaking work in 120 countries. Deliver was key according to the client:  “What I look for is the capacity of the firm to manage a network, to guarantee the quality, and to retain and pay all of its subcontractors on a fixed budget. Eversheds Sutherland already had those runs on the Board in its work for IATA from 2013.”

Cathal McDermott - Privacy and Regulatory Affairs Attorney (Corporate, Legal and External Affairs) , Microsoft

Cathal McDermott is a Privacy and Regulatory Affairs Attorney based in Dublin and working in the Regulatory Affairs group of Microsoft’s Corporate, External and Legal Affairs (CELA) Department. He plays a central role in counselling frontline legal teams across Microsoft on privacy and data protection issues with a focus on issues such as GDPR implementation, cross-border data flows, and cloud privacy. He also acts as global privacy counsel to internal Gaming teams within Microsoft.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Cathal worked as product and privacy legal counsel for Europe at Dropbox, where he managed legal compliance strategy for a wide range of matters relating to data processing, building GDPR privacy programs and international privacy compliance. Before this, Cathal was the commercial and privacy legal counsel with Red Hat where he specialised in technology licensing and transactions, outsourcing arrangements and related privacy issues. Cathal graduated with a law degree from Trinity College Dublin and earned his Master of Laws degree from University College London. 

James Bellerjeau - Head of Regulatory Affairs, Mettler-Toledo International Inc.

James Bellerjeau is Head of Regulatory Affairs of Mettler-Toledo International Inc., an S&P 500 company with its worldwide headquarters in Greifensee, Switzerland. Mettler-Toledo is the world's largest provider of weighing instruments for use in laboratory, industrial, and food retailing applications.

James previously served as Group General Counsel of Mettler-Toledo through the end of 2018. Prior to joining Mettler-Toledo as its General Counsel in 1998, James worked at the law firms of

• Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in Frankfurt, Germany, and
• Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson in New York, NY. 

His practice included securities, structured finance, mergers & acquisitions, public company, and corporate law.

James lectures in the LL.M program of the University of Zürich and for the Europa Institut of the University of Zürich. James previously served as President of the European chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel and as a member of the Board, as well as a country representative for Switzerland.

James received a Bachelor of Arts (magna cum laude) from Clark University, a Juris Doctor (magna cum laude) from Albany Law School, and a Master of Business Administration from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Sandra Mori - Data Privacy Officer Europe, Coca-Cola

 

Sandra Mori is currently the European DPO of Coca-Cola.  Previously, she held the position of European General Counsel of Coca-Cola for over 8 years.

A native of Pisa (Italy), Sandra attended the University of Pisa where she obtained her law degree in 1989.  She then completed her education at the Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut, attending a one-year master program in international law.

Before joining Coca-Cola in 2001, she worked for Microsoft Corp. as Director of Legal Affairs for Southern Europe and in various law firms in Italy and the US.

Kimberly Nuzum - Group Deputy General Counsel, Publicis Groupe

Kimberly Nuzum serves as Deputy General Counsel of Publicis Groupe, the world’s third largest communications company, headquartered in Paris, with $9B in annual revenue and best-in-class creative, digital, technology and consulting services.  Kim is a member of management of the company’s global legal team providing legal services to operations in over 80 countries.  As a trusted partner to senior management, Kim advises on complex international legal and business issues.  She is known for a clear-minded business approach, thriving in fast-moving, rapidly changing environments, and is adept at evolving company legal needs in times of business transformation and growth.  Kim has a track record of successful first-time, wide-scale implementations of cost-effective and efficient technology, compliance and process improvement programs. 

Previously, Kim was Assistant General Counsel at Sapient Corporation, a $1.4B global digital marketing and technology services company, headquartered in Boston, with 13,000+ employees, publicly-traded on Nasdaq and now a subsidiary of Publicis Groupe.  Prior to working in-house, Kim practiced litigation and corporate law at Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, and graduated from Boston University School of Law.  Kim’s experience includes management, corporate governance, compliance, complex commercial agreements, dispute resolution, risk management, advertising law, mergers and acquisitions, technology licensing, international law issues.

David Saunders - Partner, Eversheds Sutherland

David is a partner in our consulting division. 

Our consulting division focuses on providing alternative solutions to in house teams.  The services provided by our consulting division include: legal team consulting; interim lawyer placements; a managed service operation for straightforward volume legal work; and legal technology consultancy services.

David has significant experience of advising General Counsel and Heads of Legal on transformation and optimisation of their in house legal teams with a real focus on strategy, organisational design, process, technology and third party relationships.

David was previously Deputy Group General Counsel at Nationwide Building Society.

Eric van Dam - Employment Lawyer, MfN certified Mediator, CLINT, Littler

Eric is a business savvy lawyer and mediator as well as founding partner of CLINT | Littler, a corporate employment law boutique firm based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He started his career in private practice with Greenberg Traurig. Before setting up CLINT, he held several management board positions within the fashion industry. As board member and the company’s in-house lawyer (admitted to the Amsterdam bar) he had a pioneering role in the strong international growth of menswear retailer Suitsupply.

Focusing extensively at corporate employment law, Eric serves as a trusted advisor to many employers on all their human resources management issues, including the data privacy and data protection in the workplace.

Eric studied Dutch law at Utrecht University before becoming a lawyer. He followed the postgraduate course on Employment Law (PALA) at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Eric is a certified mediator, registered with the Netherlands Mediation Federation (MfN) as well as a member of the Association of Dutch Employment Lawyers (VAAN).

Sara Fernández - Privacy Strategy Director, Liberty Global

Sara is currently Privacy Strategy Director at Liberty Global, a Cable and telecommunications Company Group operating in 12 European countries, Virgin Media in the U.K. And Ziggo in the Netherlands among others.

She's responsible for designing the privacy strategy and data customer journey at a corporate level, in order to maximize business opportunities around data while building a relationship based on trust.

She has a legal background and previously worked in Telefónica España for 20 years, as Data Protection Officer, Customer Protection, and Regulatory Legal Manager.

She's also an Executive Coach and a leadership program facilitator.

Jeremy Rollison - Director Government Affairs, Microsoft EU

Jeremy Rollison is Director of EU Government Affairs within Microsoft’s Corporate, External, & Legal Affairs (CELA) group. With a focus on data protection, cybersecurity, cloud and data policy in the context of the EU’s Digital Single Market (DSM), he is responsible for engagement with EU officials, regulators, and industry stakeholders on policy surrounding emerging data issues, particularly the challenges and opportunities related to the provision of cloud services in Europe and regulatory considerations for cloud computing,Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked at Nokia (Government Relations) in the company’s EU representative office and was previously Director of the European Digital Media Association (EDiMA) in Brussels. He has over a decade of EU public policy experience at the company, association, and consultancy levels, focusing on issues related to the development and delivery of digital and online services in the Internal Market and corresponding EU regulatory policy.

Thomas Roth - Global Data Protection Officer, Boehringer Ingelheim

Thomas Roth is the Global Data Protection Officer for Boehringer Ingelheim, a globally acting, research-based and family owned pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Ingelheim, Germany. BI has about 50.000 employees and a yearly turnover of around 18 billion Euros.

Thomas is a lawyer by training and held several legal and compliance roles at BI in the human pharma and animal health business units before becoming the Global Data Protection Officer at the beginning of 2017. Before joining BI, Thomas worked for international law firms in London and Cologne  - one of which was Freshfields - advising clients in regulated industries including the health care market in Germany.

Cem Akoymak - Director of General Legal Affairs, Turkcell

Cem Akoymak is the Director of General Legal Affairs at Turkcell Group; the leading mobile networks and digital services provider in Turkey; quoted in both Istanbul (BIST) and New York (NYSE) stock exchanges and operating in 6 countries including Ukraine, Belorussia, Northern Cyprus, Netherlands and Germany.

Cem, in addition to being general counsel for the group activities, is responsible from overall B2B and B2C contracting framework, intellectual property, subsidiaries’ legal coordination,  M&A and banking & finance work of the company; and he leads the digital transformation of the department. He also holds board member positions in some of the group companies.

Before joining Turkcell, he was in charge of regulatory compliance, data protection, competition law and administrative/commercial/tax litigation at Türk Telekom, the fixed incumbent and GSM operator. 

Cem has extensive experience in start-up commercial initiatives & cross-functional projects, and is highly dedicated to digitalization of legal flows and utmost use of technology in law.

Andrea Bertolini - Assistant Professor of Law, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna

Andrea Bertolini, Ph.D., LL.M. (Yale) is an assistant professor of private law at the Dirpolis Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa (SSSA), and adjunct professor in private law at the University of Pisa Department of Economics and Business.

His research ranges from private law (contracts, torts and the law of obligations) to technology regulation (robotics and AI), and bioethics.

He coordinates a number of national and European projects on various aspects of technology regulation, including the European Centre of Excellence on the Regulation of Robotics and AI (EURA), funded by the European Commission under the Jean Monnet Action, to bring together, academics, policy-makers, the industry, in a broad debate on how new technologies can and should be tackled.

Dr. Bertolini’s research heavily rests on comparative law, and law and economics. His theory on the so called Risk-Management Approach, presented before the JURI Committee in 2014, was expressly mentioned in the 2017 Recommendations of the European Parliament to the Commission on the Civil law rules of robotics as a possible solution to the problem of liability in robotics and AI.

On such matters, he is often heard by policy makers and international organizations, including the EU Parliament and Commission, the World Economic Forum, and OECD.

Sandrine Fleischman - Global Head of Contracting Center of Excellence, Sanofi

Sandrine Fleischman is a qualified attorney and former member of the Paris Bar. She graduated from Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, as well as from University College London with a Master in Laws.

She had a senior experience in a major law firm both in legal advice and litigation before joining Sanofi in 2008 as a Legal Director and has supported R&D Operations and Development at global level since 2010.

On January 1st, 2019, she was appointed Global Head of a newly created Contracting Center of Excellence with the aim of delivering a core model for worldwide contract management through a dedicated and single organisation.

Sandra Martín Morán - General Counsel, Insud Pharma

Sandra Martin is since 2014 Chief Legal Officer of INSUD PHARMA (former Chemo) leading a team of 20. INSUD PHARMA is leading generic drugs manufacturer in Spain with operations in 50 countries.

Executive Board Director, member to the Global Executive Committee and has recently assumed pharma operations lead in France.

Non-profit:  Board Secretary of Mundo Sano Foundation (fighting Chagas disease) and Co-founder of W Startup Community (supporting women digital entrepreneurs).

More than 20 years of legal executive experience in top tier companies in the IT (Indra) ,Telecom (Telefonica) and Pharma (Insud) sectors, as well as in private practice (EY).

Passionate for technology and very active with the startup ecosystem in Spain.

Graduated in Madrid Complutense University, completed executive training in prestigious business schools as INSEAD, UCLA Anderson and IE.

Pino Bethencourt - Coach for leadership and personal growth,

After 15 years of coaching practice, Pino summarizes her approach to leadership development in three words: “Embrace The Wild!”  She helps top executives develop an eye for the invisible dynamics of emotion and instinct in business, accepting their unpredictable strength, and understanding how their simple but powerful logic drives behavior and end results.

Pino provides executive coaching services to top leaders in several companies (CEO, CEO-1, shareholders, board members, and family business owners). She facilitates teambuilding and leadership skills programs for groups in Nature: on mountain hikes or with horses.

Pino founded and presides Club Comprometidos, through which influential business people promote a culture of personal growth in Spain.

Pino holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from ETSII of Madrid, an ExecutiveMBA from IEBusiness School, and she is trained in multiples lines of study of human and animal behavior. She has been an executive in multinationals, an entrepreneur and business owner, a public speaker and promoter of several women groups. She has published four books and actively participated in TV and radio.

Andrea Garford-Tull - Group Senior Legal Counsel, Technology and IP, Dentsu Aegis

Inspired by her Dad, Andrea pursued a career that’s tech focussed: qualifying into Bird & Bird’s TMT team, double secondment at Google, and landing a role at Dentsu Aegis where she grapples with complex adtech and IP issues. Inspired by her Mum, she has always possessed a strong drive to give back to community. At Dentsu Aegis, this has culminated in a highly-involved Trustee role (at The Third Age Project) and acting as a key committee member for its first global pro bono programme (which is proudly celebrating its second year).

Andrea grew up in Australia and Hong Kong, settling in the UK since 2001 after falling in love with London (and a Brit!).

David Gribble - Senior Commercial Lawyer, British Telecom

David Gribble is Head of the Republic of Ireland Transactions team at British Telecom, based in London and Dublin.  David’s been with BT for 14 years and worked in the Major Transactions Team, and in BT’s Wholesale, Global Services and Group businesses. He’s led and worked on deals in the UK, and in Europe and Australia in the public and private sector, and has done secondments to the Competition Team, and to the General Counsel’s office.  He has been a member of BT’s pro bono committee.  He is one of the UK Country Representatives for ACC Europe.  As well as a law degree, David has a PhD in Ancient Greek Literature. He’s from Sydney, is married to a German, and lives in Oxford.

Avnee Thakrar - Senior Legal Counsel, 3M North Europe Region

Avnee Thakrar has an honors degree in Economics; is a qualified Solicitor in the UK and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in EU Competition Law.   Avnee started her career as an M&A lawyer at a national law firm in the UK and moved in-house to 3M in 1999. As a keen advocate of legal transformation and innovation, Avnee has had several opportunities to speak on this subject externally. In her new role as head of legal operations Avnee plans to develop strategies for the efficient delivery of legal service across the EMEA region which stretches as far as Russia and the Gulf Countries, to South Africa and the Nordics and Baltics.  

Avnee is passionate about diversity and inclusion and community service.  To this end Avnee leads the Women’s Leadership Forum in the UK&I and is also a founding member of 3M’s Probono4International steering team. In 2018, Avnee worked on a 2-week skills based pro bono assignment in Brazil, assisting an NGO operating on the outskirts of a favela in Campinas, San Paolo to develop and improve the lives of neighborhood children often growing up in very dangerous environments.  

Avnee is married and has two boys.

Rebecca Wilkinson - Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Programmes, Law Works

As Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Programmes of LawWorks, Rebecca leads the team which supports a growing network of independent pro bono clinics, and facilitates the provision of pro bono legal advice for smaller charities and not-for-profit organisations. In her role, Rebecca works closely with member firms and third sector organisations, to drive forward LawWorks’ pro bono programmes, helping to address unmet legal need within England & Wales. 

Rebecca previously managed the Law Society's pro bono and public legal education programmes as their Pro Bono and Public Legal Education Policy Adviser (2014-2018). On behalf of the Law Society she acted as the organiser for National Pro Bono Week, sat on the Attorney General's Domestic & International pro bono committees, and coordinated the Society's relationships with key stakeholders. Rebecca was called to the Bar in 2013.

Prior to her involvement with the legal profession, Rebecca spent many years working for Community Service Volunteers, a large volunteering charity, where she ran national projects and training events. She gained extensive experience in managing and inspiring people to give up their time on a voluntary basis to help others.

Mark Langsbury - Director, UK and Europe, ContractPodAi®

Mark Langsbury is ContractPodAi’s Director of Sales for UK and Europe. With 10+ years’ experience of providing legal information and software to the legal market (formerly with Thomson Reuters), he is passionate about improving lawyers’ efficiency and demonstrating how this can have a positive impact on the goals and revenue drivers of organisations as a whole. Mark is focused on helping legal departments and organisations with their digital transformation journey.

Kenny Robertson - Head of Outsourcing, Legal, RBS

Kenny heads the Outsourcing, Technology & IP legal team at the Royal Bank of Scotland.   He joined the bank is 2006 as a legal counsel and has progressed to lead the full team, sitting on the department’s Senior Leadership Group.   Prior to joining the bank, Kenny worked in private practice and as sole in-house counsel at Graham Technology plc.  He has led on some of the largest technology outsourcing projects in the UK and is now additionally responsible for the bank’s role out and adoption of legal technology.  He holds a Masters in IT & Telecommunications Law and regularly presents at legal conferences in the UK (typically on best practice across in-house legal teams and legal issues arising from emerging technology), co-chairing the joint In-House Counsel Worldwide/Canadian Corporate Counsel Association conference held in Toronto in 2018.  Kenny was named the In-House Lawyer of the Year at the 2018 Law Awards of Scotland and “Individual of the Year” for Outsourcing Strategy at the 2019 Legal 500 Awards.

Aoife Young - Commercial Counsel, Facebook

Aoife Young is an Associate General Counsel working on the international commercial team of Facebook, Dublin for almost 5 years. Prior to joining Facebook she has worked in private practice in Dublin and Brussels and as a stagiaire at DG Trade of the European Commission. She has a BCL in Law and French from University College Cork and a Masters in European Law from the College of Europe, Bruges.

In the course of her work, she deals with very large revenue generating contracts across APAC, LATAM and EMEA regions, some of which constitute a significant portion of Facebook’s global revenue. The bulk of her work is handling legal matters surrounding Facebook’s international advertising business which involves acting promptly and across time zones, regions and teams to get a deal over the line. In efforts to render systems and processes more efficient, she has collaborated closely with XFN teams to develop, test and launch worldwide automation tools and contract input and management systems for strategically important deals.

Hans Albers - Chief of Staff Legal, Associate General Counsel, Juniper Networks

Hans Albers is currently Chief of Staff to Juniper’s General Counsel and Associate General Counsel International Legal Services. As such he is responsible for the Legal Departments strategic planning, innovation, global legal entity management, people development and training and other miscellaneous projects within the Global Legal function. Hans is based in Juniper’s EMEA HQ in Amsterdam and frequently travels to Juniper’s corporate HQ in Sunnyvale, California.

Previously Hans was Senior Director and General Counsel for the EMEA Region where he was responsible for managing Juniper’s Legal team in EMEA and providing legal support to Juniper EMEA Executive Leadership team and the overall Sales organization. He also managed the Global Legal Operations function for several years.  Hans joined Juniper in August 2011 from Cisco Systems, Inc. where his last role was Sales Operations Director for Emerging Markets and prior to that he served as Legal Director for EMEA from 2000 until 2006 and Legal Director for the US and Canada from 2006 until 2008. From mid 2008 until august 2011 Hans was in a non-legal role, running the Customer Operations organization for Emerging Markets.  Prior to Cisco he served as in-house counsel for ICL-Fujitsu and Nokia. Hans holds a Law Degree from Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands and is a member of the Dutch in-house lawyers Association. He also serves as President of the European Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel (“ACC”) and is also a member of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (“CLOC”).

Hans is passionate about delivering innovative legal services using the latest IT systems and tools. He spoke on the subject at various conferences over the years and at the 2013 ACC European Conference spoke on Legal Strategy and at the 2017 London CLOC Institute about Change Management. Hans loves to build relationships across the legal industry, both in-house as well as with law firms and likes to share best practices whenever possible.

Peter Lyon - Vice President Customer Success, Brightflag

Peter Lyon is the Vice President of Customer Success for Brightflag, managing the Customer Success team which helps Brightflag customers define and successfully execute their external Legal Spend strategy.

With over 15 years implementing Customer Success programmes in internationally focused businesses, Peter’s belief is that a successful Customer Success strategy is largely dependent the customer centric culture of the organisation and its ability to understand the needs of their customers.

Peter is the co-founder of Customer Success Network, a not-for-profit peer learning group that organises Customer Success Management events across Europe. Peter holds a Masters in Management Practice from Trinity College Dublin.

Gloria Sánchez - Chief Transformation Officer, Santander

Gloria Sánchez is Head of Transformation of Banco Santander’s Group Legal Department, taking care of innovation & legal tech, strategy and efficiency of the legal area. She’s been previously in charge of the legal team for the Equity Participations, Real Estate and Portfolio Sales Area at Banco Santander.

She commenced her legal career in Clifford Chance in 2004, and after some years advising clients in different transactions, she joined the Santander’s group as in-house legal, where she gained a profound experience in different areas of advice (including M&A, real estate transactions and project finance). She has been involved in various major corporate and real estate transactions in different countries such as Spain, France, Portugal, Belgium, UK, USA, Mexico, Brazil.

She is associate professor at Instituto Empresa, where she currently teaches both at the Law School and the School of Architecture & Design. In the previous years, she was associate professor of corporate law at Carlos III University in Madrid and lecturer in other public and private institutions. She is a speaker of innovation and legal tech in multiple forums.

Miguel Viedma - Vice President and Group Legal Director Digital, Capgemini

Miguel is a dual Spanish and UK qualified lawyer with more than 17 years of international experience working with leading groups at the forefront of technology and digital innovation in different countries and jurisdictions and have been based in Spain, UK , Switzerland and France.

Miguel joined Capgemini in 2018 as member of the Capgemini Executive Legal Board (“ELB”) and Group Legal VP in charge of Digital and Business Innovation worldwide, Miguel’s main role is  to develop the digital legal framework and expertise to support the Group’s strong ambition in the digital area.

Before joining Capgemini he worked for the International Olympic Committee, based in Lausanne. Amongst other responsibilities, Miguelwas in charge of leading and managing the legal and strategic support to technology projects and their implementation for the Olympic Games, working with the different IOC stakeholders, public authorities, TOP partners and suppliers. Miguel also worked with different Organizing Committees of the Olympic Games (such as Rio 2016, Pyeong Chang 2018 or Tokyo 2020) in the development, implementation and management of their domestic commercial and supply programs, with special focus on on technology related areas.

Before the IOC,  Miguel worked  for other international leading technology groups where he held different managerial positions within the legal team, including responsibilities at Regional and Worldwide level.

Kris Brown - President, Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence

As President of the Brady Campaign & Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Kris Brown combines a lifelong background in policy and grassroots activism with considerable strategic management expertise to help forge the direction of the organization’s campaigns and ensure the successful impact of its national and field assets.

A veteran of gun violence prevention work, Ms. Brown started her career on Capitol Hill working for Rep. Jim Moran, advocating for the bill that would eventually become the groundbreaking Brady Act requiring background checks on federally licensed gun sales. At Brady, she has helped shape the conversation on gun violence as a national healthcare crisis, and she is particularly proud of Brady’s “Team ENOUGH” youth initiative that emerged from the Parkland high school massacre.

A noted speaker and media commentator on gun violence, Ms. Brown was most recently featured in the November 2018 TIME magazine cover article, “Guns in America,” in which she noted that Brady is working to move the discussion on gun violence beyond the polarizing politics in American life. “There’s a huge amount of common ground on this issue in this country and I hope we’re finally at a tipping point where we can move forward with legislation and [programs] that actually protect people, and are entirely consistent with the Second Amendment.”

Ms. Brown grew up in Arlington, VA, where she still resides with her two teenage daughters.

Otilia Dhand - PhD, Political risk analyst, Teneo

Otilia specialises in political risk of Central and Eastern European countries, including Russia and Ukraine.

Otilia’s research on the current affairs of central and Eastern European countries is frequently quoted in international media including: The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and news agencies Reuters and Bloomberg, Bloomberg TV and CNBC. She is an author of The Idea of Central Europe: Geopolitics, Culture and Regional Identity, and her blogs and articles have been featured in The Financial Times’ “Beyond BRICs” section, and Business New Europe magazine.

Prior to joining Teneo, she was a CEE Region Analyst at Eurasia Group, and previously worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit. She is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and holds a Ph.D. in the geopolitics of Central Europe from King’s College, London. She also has a master’s degree in Russian and East European Studies from St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Diplomacy from Matej Bel University in her native Slovakia.

Otilia is a regular speaker at varied forums ranging from foreign policy professionals to investors. Recently, her speaking engagements took place in New York, Paris and Hong Kong.

Sebastian Chames - Senior Vice-President, General Counsel, Viacom International Media Networks Southern & Western Europe Middle, East Africa

Sebastián Chames is Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) Southern & Western Europe, Middle East & Africa.

In this role Chames overseas the legal and business activity of the cluster, being particularly involved on key strategic structured deals, M&A, litigation and regulatory, with the ultimate goal to assure achievement of the business objectives of the company all in compliance with legal requirements and international company practices.

In 1996, Chames began his career at Sogecable group in Spain; first in the movie production company Sogecine; later in 1996 in movie distribution working for Sogepaq; and in 1998 in pay TV in Canal Plus/Canal Satelite Digital. He joined VIACOM in 1999 as head of legal of Paramount Comedy then reporting to Paramount Pictures.

In 2015, he was appointed as head of legal and business department of MTV Networks Iberia (that managed the services Paramount Comedy, MTV and Nickelodeon).

He was promoted Vice President in 2008, becoming responsible at that time for Greece in addition to Spain and Portugal.

In 2012, he was promoted and started heading the business and legal department for the South Europe, Middle East & Africa for Viacom International Media Networks.

Chames holds a degree in Law from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (89/94), an intellectual property postgraduate degree from the Queen Mary and Westfield Colleague –University Of London (95/96), and Master in Law from Centro de Estudios Finacieros (94/95).

Chames is a visiting lecturer at various post-graduate courses in media and entertainment law including, Instituto de Empresa (post graduate in intellectual property law)

Matteo Frigerio - Italy Country Manager and Senior Counsel, Airbnb

Matteo has a true passion for new technologies regulatory challenges. He joined the popular travel platform, Airbnb, in 2016 as a senior legal counsel and in March 2018 he also started acting as country manager, leading local operations and strategy. Matteo is working hand-in-hand with the Airbnb community, policy makers and government relations experts to propose new legislative initiatives, participate in public debates as well as contributing to direct democracy opportunities to amend existing laws. Prior to taking up his current role, Matteo’s career spanned among Italy, Switzerland and Ireland in various regulatory roles at Yahoo, PayPal and Ralph Lauren. During his time at Yahoo, Matteo served as EMEA head of regulatory compliance and law enforcement, substantially contributing to building a new legal department when Yahoo moved its headquarters from Geneva to Dublin and creating a law enforcement liaison team in the new HQ from scratch. At Ralph Lauren, he contributed to the brand corporate and retail innovation strategy by structuring an offline private club initiative designed to foster engagement with the company most sophisticated clients.

Jonathan Warne - Head of Litigation and Arbitration, CMS

Jonathan heads the Litigation and Arbitration team. He has over 30 years of experience handling both domestic and cross-border disputes including financial services, company commercial, fraud and insolvency related litigation. He frequently deals with multi-party jurisdictional issues and handles cases in the firm’s key sectors including energy, infrastructure and technology. He has played a central role in developing the firm’s Singapore office.

He has expertise in the regulatory arena including competition disputes and investigations. He has been involved in many of the leading pension litigation cases.

Jonathan has worked extensively with General Counsel and has led a GC thought leadership initiative for over 10 years. Reports published include: “From In-House Lawyer to Business Counsel”, “General Counsel: Vague about Value?", “The Influential GC", “Room to Grow? How to manage and engage talent” and the most recent, "General Counsel: reaching new heights?”. The work has been commended in the Financial Times’ Innovation Awards for client service.

He is general editor of Bloomsbury’s text on International Commercial Dispute Resolution covering 24 jurisdictions and Council Member of the Inter Pacific Bar Association.
Legal 500 2017 comments: he is "a particularly impressive litigator", "a skilled strategist and has brilliant client skills". He is in Legal 500 2018 Hall of Fame.
Chambers 2018 comments: he is "an extremely good litigator" and also remarks on his "exceptional client skills", saying that "his tact, diplomacy and approachability are second to none”.
Nominated as a “stand out" lawyer by Acritas based on independent client feedback.

Paul H Williams - Executive Commercial Counsel, GE Power

Paul Williams is Executive Commercial Counsel at GE Power with a global role advising the Power new equipment and services business, and is based in Baden, Switzerland. GE Power is a world leader in power generation equipment and services. GEtechnology today delivers one third of the world’s electricity.

He has many years’ international commercial legal experience, including negotiating a large number of high-value contracts for major projects in Europe, Asia and Latin America. He has advised on a wide range of claims, disputes, project execution issues, and on matters involving competition law, IP and ethics and compliance.

Paul is an English Solicitor and started his legal career in 1993 at Hogan Lovells in London, becoming a commercial litigator managing high-value disputes in the High Court in London and also focusing on mediation. In 2001 he joined Alstom Power as Senior Legal Counsel, based in Switzerland, and in 2006 was appointed Legal Director for Alstom’s global gas turbine services business. After Alstom Power’s acquisition by General Electric in 2015, Paul, was appointed Executive Commercial Counsel at GE Power.

Paul has developed and led a number of internal training programmes on matters including commercial awareness, claims management, ethics, compliance and negotiation strategies, and has performed training for legal and business personnel in many locations across the globe.

 

Pino Bethencourt - Coach for leadership and personal growth,

After 15 years of coaching practice, Pino summarizes her approach to leadership development in three words: “Embrace The Wild!”  She helps top executives develop an eye for the invisible dynamics of emotion and instinct in business, accepting their unpredictable strength, and understanding how their simple but powerful logic drives behavior and end results.

Pino provides executive coaching services to top leaders in several companies (CEO, CEO-1, shareholders, board members, and family business owners). She facilitates teambuilding and leadership skills programs for groups in Nature: on mountain hikes or with horses.

Pino founded and presides Club Comprometidos, through which influential business people promote a culture of personal growth in Spain.

Pino holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from ETSII of Madrid, an ExecutiveMBA from IEBusiness School, and she is trained in multiples lines of study of human and animal behavior. She has been an executive in multinationals, an entrepreneur and business owner, a public speaker and promoter of several women groups. She has published four books and actively participated in TV and radio.

Jason Dorsey - Millennial and Gen Z Researcher and Keynote Speaker, The Center for Generational Kinetics - Millennial and Gen Z Researchers

Jason Dorsey is the #1 Gen Z, Millennial, and generations speaker and researcher. He has received more than 1,000 standing ovations for his acclaimed presentations. Adweek calls him a “research guru.” He’s funny, too.

Jason has appeared on over 200 TV shows including 60 Minutes, 20/20, The Today Show, and in a New York Times cover story.

Jason is President of The Center for Generational Kinetics, which delivers research, speaking, and consulting for more than 180 clients annually. Jason works closely with leaders around the world to separate generational myth from truth.

He uses original, data-driven research to explain generational behaviors. He has led research on four continents and keynoted events from India and Egypt to Chile, Finland and all 50 U.S. States.

Jason and his team at The Center have repositioned global brands to win each generation. They’ve advised on multi-billion-dollar acquisitions and taken clients from last to first in both employee retention and customer growth.

He’s also a Millennial, married to a Gen X’er, and they have a Gen Z daughter.