No name-dropping, but I am really proud having contributed to these projects, associations and working groups:
BOARD ROLES
2021 – present: Member of the Advisory Board for the Cyber Security & Business programme at HTW Berlin
2019 – 2021: Member of the Board of Directors of International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA), Brussels
2018 – present: Chair of the Board of Directors thinkBLOCKtank, Luxembourg
2017 – 2020: Member of the extended Board of Directors of the Interplanetary Database Association (IPDB)
EXPERT ROLES
2024– present: Member of the Digital Asset Task Force of the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime
2024: Mentor of the „Empowerment Female Founders“ program of Accelerator Frankfurt
2024 – present: Contact for project „Generative AI for SME“ at KI_Werkstatt Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW Berlin)
2021 – 2023: Expert, Future Energy Lab of the German Energy Agency (dena)
2020 – 2023: Appointed to the Digital Assets and Private Law Working Group of UNIDROIT, Rome
2020 – 2024: Appointed to the Expert Group of the EU Blockchain Observatory & Forum
2020 – present: Jury member for the Fintech Germany Award
2020: Mentor BLOCKSTAR Mentoring Program of the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center
2018 – 2020: Appointed to the Working Group "Blockchain Policy and Framework Conditions" at EU Blockchain Observatory & Forum
OTHER ROLES
2025: Co-Organiser of the Digital Assets - Legislators Global (DALG) Forum
2024 – present: Co-Organiser of the MiCAR Expert Roundtable series in collaboration with the European Commission
2020 – present: Co-editor Journal for the Law of the Digital Economy ("ZdiW"), Wolters Kluwer Verlag
2020 – present: Lecturer University of Applied Sciences Berlin (HTW Berlin), currently bachelor course "Cybersecurity and Business"
MEMBERSHIPS
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w3.hub
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Government Blockchain Association - GBA
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Women in Big Data
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Blockchain Lawyers Forum
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ITSA International Token Standardisation Association
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thinkBLOCKtank
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Blockchain Bundesverband
Overview of Specialist Training
OVERVIEW OF SPECIALIST TRAINING
PROFESSIONAL CAREER
EDUCATION
2024 OSCE Training "Train the Trainer"
2023 Qualified Supervisory Board certificate of School of Governance, Risk and Compliance of Steinbeis Hochschule Berlin
2021 Advanced training for AML officers
2000 6-week specialist lawyer course in tax law
Education
I graduated from University Bielefeld with a degree in legal science (1989-1995) and went on to write a PhD thesis on democracy theory, with a focus on the separation of powers (1995-1996). My legal clerkship took me to Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften, Speyer, and a law firm in Miami, USA (1997-1999).
Professional Career
I began my legal career with (a predecessor of) EY Law / Luther, Berlin, specializing in corporate law and financing (1999-2006). To complement my legal skills, I completed a 6-weeks specialist lawyer course in tax law, forming the foundation of my tax understanding. I spent a year with McKee Nelson in New York, specializing in structured finance (2002-2003).
Upon my return to Germany, I became a partner at EY Law, focusing on advising on asset-backed securities and other structured finance transactions (2005). I then moved to DLA Piper as a partner in 2006, where I built a structured finance practice with a focus on debt capital market (structured covered bonds, mezzanine bonds) and advising debt funds on highly secured high-risk loan notes to German SME. I also served as Head of FinTech as of 2015, discovered initial blockchain consortia and began giving legal talks to the local coder community.
In 2017, I moved to DWF, a technology-focused international law firm, where I advised on numerous token sales and supported projects in structuring and building their blockchain based services. I have completed an advanced training for AML officers (2021) and currently support projects in solo practice while building AI expertise as a contact for the GenAI project for SMEs at the University of Applied Science, HTW Berlin (2022-present).
Vita
Photo by Alan Ovaska
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