Impressions – Legal Disruption 2019 (Dublin)

Sabine Abbasi
Director Corporate Legal & Compliance Officer, EQOS Energie Deutschland

Mrs. Sabine Abbasi studied Business Psychology and Business Law in Hamburg and Boston, MA (USA). She has more than 15 years of professional and managerial experience.

In addition to her honorary work as an examiner at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, she also participated in various textbooks in the field of law as a writer and co-author.

She is currently doing her doctorate at Mendel University in the field of management. Since 2018 she works as Director of the German legal department of EQOS Energie Deutschland GmbH. Since 2019 she is also appointed as Compliance Officer.

Michael R. Winkler
Head of Integrity & Legal/Legal Supply and Sales (IL/LS) of the Daimler AG´s Legal Department

Since July 2017 Michael R. Winkler is Head of Integrity & Legal/Legal Supply and Sales (IL/LS) in the Daimler AG’s Legal Department.

After studying law at Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich und at St. John’s College in Oxford he completed his articles at the Appellate Court Munich.

Michael Winkler completed a European Executive Master of Business Administration (MBA) at the international Business School ESCP in Paris in 2006.

Since 1997 he has held various positions within the legal department of Daimler AG.

From 2003 to 2007 he was in charge of alternative powertrain projects and European topics in the Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) Division.

From 2007 to 2010 he was responsible for establishing and heading the Legal and Compliance Department in Bejing for the Asia-Pacific Region.

From 2011 to 2013 Michael Winkler was General Counsel for Daimler Financial Services AG and from 2013 to 2017 acted as Head of Legal/ Corporate, Asia-Pacific and Chief Operating Officer of Daimler AG’s Legal Department.

Tarik Gause
Associate General Counsel, Business & Legal Affairs (EMEA), Roku, Inc.

Tarik Gause is Associate General Counsel at Roku, Inc., an American publicly traded company based in that manufactures a variety of digital media players for video streaming, in addition to running an advertising business and licensing its hardware and software to other companies.

Prior to joining Roku, Inc., Tarik was the Associate General Counsel at VEON Ltd., (in Amsterdam) and the Assistant General Counsel and Vice President at Bank of America Corporation (BofA); a capital markets attorney with Shearman & Sterling LLP in São Paulo, Brazil (2013-2016); an investment funds attorney with K&L Gates LLP (2010-2013); a research analyst and staff attorney in the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (2005-2010); and director of Japan and Korea international trade policy at the White House’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (1999-2005).  Tarik is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center (JD), Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (MA) and Howard University (BA).  He is fluent in Portuguese and conversant in Spanish.

Dorota Koseła
EMEA Counsel, Jumio Corporation

Dorota Koseła is the EMEA Counsel at the London office of FinTech company Jumio. In addition to a double MA in Law and Sociology, she holds an LL.M. in Law, Science and Technology from Stanford Law School. She advises on a wide range of contractual and regulatory issues involving technology, including Fintech, mobile health and the Internet of Things. In particular, she has developed unique practical experience in advising tech companies on their international expansion. Dorota is also a seasoned data protection lawyer. She is a keen mentor and has been advising and mentoring technology-based start-ups from Central and Eastern Europe.

Bettina Sonnemann
Head of Legal Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Microsoft

Bettina Sonnemann is Head of Legal at Microsoft Deutschland GmbH. In her role she manages all legal matters for Microsoft‘s business in Germany. Major areas of her current work are software licensing, digital transformation, cloud services, data protection law and legal aspects of artificial intelligence. Ms. Sonnemann has over 15 years of professional experience as an in-house counsel for multi-national technology companies. Prior to joining Microsoft about 5 years ago, she was a Senior Director and Lead Lawyer at Intel Mobile Communications‘ international smartphone business and an IP attorney at Infineon Technologies AG, a semiconductor company. Bettina Sonnemann is a registered attorney and holds a law degree from Ludwigs-Maximilians-University in Munich and from Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. She earned an LL.M. in International Commercial Law from University of California, Davis, USA and is currently attending the Global Executive MBA at INSEAD.

Grégoire Miot
Head of New Markets / Chief Evangelist – Legal Software, Wolters Kluwer

Former practicing lawyer in the Energy industry, he launched a consulting firm dedicated to digital transformation of the practice of law, prior leading the development of Leaders League group subsidiaries, expanding the portfolio of digital services to legal practitioners.
Involved with legal technology for the past 10 years, he joined Legisway in 2018 as Head of New Markets and Chief Evangelist, in the context of its acquisition by Wolters Kluwer Group.

Thomas Northoff
Managing Partner and Global Technology, Deloitte

Thomas Northoff joined in Deloitte 1994, and is, as a Partner for Deloitte Tax & Legal, the Managing Partner for Deloitte Legal. He advises public and private sector clients on funding strategies and optimization of grants & incentives, strategy and organizational development, transactions, financing structures and tax law.

Thomas Northoff also serves as a member of the board of the Deloitte Foundation and member of the supervisory board at Universitätsmedizin Rostock.

Besides his native German, he speaks English and French.

Relevant experience

• Evaluation, impact analysis and audits on EU grant programs (FP5, ESF, EBRD, ELER)
• PPP Projects (MHKW Pirmasens, A 8 und 9, NRock)
• Implementation and supervision of Bad Banks (Rettungsschirme)

Dr. Jean Obst
Head of Legal Mobility Solution, Robert Bosch GmbH

Dr. Jean-Stephan Obst studied law from 1993-1998 at the University of Saarland. From 1995 to 1997, he completed a two-years integrated trilateral university program in England, Germany and France (Lille-Warwick-Programm). In 1997, he started his own business as a coach in communication, IT and law and together with a partner he founded GoTraining GbR. After completing his practical legal training with focus on economic law at the Higher Regional Court Saarbrücken, Jean-Stephan Obst attained a doctorate with the topic “The rights of the minority shareholder at stock exchange listed companies”. From 2003 to 2005, Jean-Stephan Obst worked as a trainee at Robert Bosch GmbH with stations in the legal department, HR department at Bosch Spain, Controlling and Sales Automotive, followed by positions as Legal Counsel (until end 2006) and Senior Legal Counsel (until October 2011) in Automotive an IT law. In addition, he served as Deputy Head for the French legal department of Robert Bosch France SARL from August 2008 to January 2009. From 2011 to 2017, Jean-Stephan Obst was Head of the legal Department at Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH and from 2015 onwards, he also been served as General Counsel West Europe. Today, he serves as Head of Law of the Mobility Solutions department at Robert Bosch Gmbh. Jean-Stephan Obst speaks German, French, English and Spanish.

Gian-Reto Schulthess
General Counsel & Company Secretary, Companjon

Gian-Reto joined Companjon in May 2020 where he is responsible for all legal and regulatory aspects of Companjon’s licensed risk carrier and its licensed intermediary. Before Companjon, he worked seven years with Zurich Insurance in different roles. He is a Swiss qualified lawyer with an Executive MBA from INSEAD, a masters’ in economics from the University St. Gallen and an MA in EC Competition Law from King’s College in London.

Companjon (www.companjon.com) is a leading tech venture in Europe specialising in embedded insurance that’s fully digital, end-to-end, and hassle-free. Its B2B2C business model allows Companjon to partner with global digital businesses to bring their customers unique, flexible, and fully automated insurance tailored to their bookings and purchases.

Ruud van Herpen
Chief Legal Officer, Xebia Group

Ruud is a seasoned legal management executive with close to 30 years of experience in various legal roles and is currently CLO at Xebia International Group. Xebia is a worldwide, innovative IT Consultancy Company, operating on a global scale with a team over 5,000 consultants helping the world’s top 250 companies and category leaders overcome digital challenges, embrace innovation, adopt new technology and implement new business models. Ruud has laid out a challenging digital transformation path for the legal department to become a fully digitalized and AI driven department by the start of 2025.

Fabrizio Manzi
General Counsel, Italiaonline

Current General Counsel of Italiaonline, main Italian-based internet company with strong focus on digital advertising and the mission to digitalize small and medium enterprises, he also acts as secretary of the Board of Directors and head of the compliance and regulatory function.

Previously, he covered the role of legal head of the M&A function and extraordinary transactions in UniCredit S.p.A., offering support in all major corporate transactions in the years 2014-17.  He had started his career in the private practice working for more than 12 years at Gianni, Origoni, Grippo, Cappelli & Partners, a primary standing Italian law firm, in the Corporate/M&A department under the guidance of Mr.Francesco Gianni.

Olaf Wolters
General Counsel & Head of Legal, idealo internet GmbH

Olaf Wolters studied law in Göttingen and Oslo, and completed his legal clerkship in business law in Frankfurt and New York. His legal career began in 2000 in the legal department of the Deutsche Bahn AG. From 2001 to 2005, he worked as a lawyer in a Frankfurt law firm focusing on media law. From 2005 to 2011, Olaf Wolters led the Federal Association of Interactive Entertainment Software (BIU). During his association activities he was also a board member and chairman of the legal committee of the German Antipiracy Organization (GVU) and board member of the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE) in Brussels. In Autumn 2011, Olaf Wolters joined BOEHMERT & BOEHMERT as a media lawyer focusing on digital media and intellectual property. Since May 2018 he is General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of idealo internet GmbH, the leading European price comparison platform.

Dr. Damian Bethke
General Counsel, MessageBird

Dr. Damian Bethke is the General Counsel of MessageBird, the famous hyper growth startup headquartered in Amsterdam with offices all over the world. With passion to build-up business from scratch, Damian brings a thorough business understanding of the telecommunications industry to the table which allows him to bridge the legal responsibility with business needs.

Before joining MessageBird, Damian has worked and studied in Switzerland, Beijing and Hong Kong. In fall 2017, MessageBird raised the biggest early stage funding for a European software firm and is on a quest to revolutionize the telecommunications market.

Michael Becker
Managing Director, Continental Europe, Consilio

Michael Becker is a qualified lawyer, admitted to the Bar in Munich, Germany. As Managing Director, he leads Consilio’s German and Swiss offices located in Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich. In addition to supporting international financial and industrial companies, he also is responsible for the comprehensive planning and management of eDiscovery, computer forensic and managed-review solutions. He has extensive expertise in the design, development and implementation of solutions in antitrust, fraud, compliance and corruption procedures, litigation, arbitration and internal investigations with specialised consideration of international data protection regulations and legal process outsourcing. In his role, Michael has led solutions design and implementation on some of the most extensive eDiscovery investigations in Germany, a large number of EU countries, the United States, Hong Kong and Japan. Michael’s most complex matter managed to date included over 82 million documents and over 1000 simultaneous custodians. Further he consults clients on data privacy and internal investigations in particular in a US/ EU cross-border context and contributes to The Sedona Conference, Working Group 6 on Discovery and Data Privacy.
Michael has published multiple articles in prestigious German newspapers and trade journals such as Süddeutsche Zeitung, Handelsblatt, and BCM, covering a wide range of topics relating to eDiscovery and Data Privacy. He is also a recognised speaker and panellist at various legal industry conferences and seminars.
Prior to joining Consilio, Michael practiced law at CHSH in Vienna and Bucharest and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in Frankfurt. Michael studied law at the University of Heidelberg and Mainz. He speaks German, English and Italian.

Robin Snasdell
Managing Director, Law Department Management, Consilio

Robin Snasdell is a Managing Director with Consilio. He is leader of the Law Department Management Consulting Team where he is responsible for executing large client engagements and directing the strategic partner program. Robin offers more than 20 years of experience in strategic and operational consulting in the legal industry. He focuses on improving the business performance of law departments and firms, utilizing strategy, organizational design, change management, finance, technology, and business process.
He has experience working with organizations in a variety of industries including energy, pharmaceutical, automotive, technology, and financial. He has successfully implemented performance improvement initiatives in multiple Fortune 50 companies. Some of his clients have included Apple, Intel, J&J, GSK, Pfizer, GM, Amgen, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Phillips66, Weatherford, CSAA, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Nissan etc. Prior to joining Consilio, Robin worked with Huron Legal, Arthur Andersen and before that he was a litigation attorney.

Andrew Dey
Senior Director, Law Department Manager, Legal Operations Consulting Team, Consilio

Currently providing consultancy services to corporate Legal teams on strategy and technology and based in London, Andrew previously held various operational, change management, IT and strategy roles at Director level within the global Legal team at Barclays bank.
Andrew was a founder member of the Banking Legal Technology (“BLT”) group, the Legal IT Innovators Group (“LITIG”) and the “KMIT” in-house legal group and is an active member of the Knowledge Management Committee of the Society for Computers and Law. Having worked closely with the LEDES Oversite Committee (“LOC”) to produce the international version of their eBilling standard and pioneer the use of matter management and eBilling in the UK, he is on the Board of the LOC. Andrew also works closely with the Legal Operations Group of the ACC (Association of Corporate Counsel) and has been on judging panels for a number of legal awards.
He is very familiar with the range of software solutions on the market for corporate legal teams and the challenges in-house legal departments have related to operations and is currently Senior Director of the Legal Operations Consulting team at Consilio.