Faculty

Daniel Martin Katz is a scientist, technologist and professor who applies an innovative polytechnic approach to teaching law – to help create lawyers for today's biggest societal challenges. Both his scholarship and teaching integrate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Professor Katz teaches at the Illinois Tech – Chicago Kent College of Law where here directs The Law Lab. In addition, Professor Katz is an external affiliated faculty at CodeX—The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics and the Academic Director of the Center for Legal Technology and Data Science at Bucerius Law School. Professor Katz is the Co-Founder of LexPredict (a legal technology company which was acquired by Elevate in November 2018).

Professor Katz received his Ph.D. in political science and public policy with a focus on complex adaptive systems from the University of Michigan. He also graduated with a Juris Doctor cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School.

Professor Dr. Jörn Axel Kämmerer holds the Chair for Public Law, Public International and European Law at Bucerius Law School. Jörn Axel Kämmerer has been a Professor (chair holder) at Bucerius Law School since 2000. He was a Guest Professor at Université Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) from 2005 to 2007 (part-time) and at Seoul National University, Republic of Korea, in 2007 and 2017. He studied law at Tübingen University, Germany, and Université d’Aix-en-Provence/Marseille III, France. Appointed Doctor of law in 1993 with a thesis on the Antarctic System after the Madrid Protocol, he received his “venia legendi” (Habilitation) in Public Law, European Law and Public International Law in 2000 by Tübingen Law Faculty. His research focuses, inter alia, on market regulation, privatization as well as law and finance in both German public law and EU law. A Director of the Institute on Company and Capital Markets Law (ICCML/IUKR) at Bucerius, he was appointed member of an advisory committee to the German Ministry of Finance on financial markets regulation in 2011. He is the author of a textbook on Constitutional Law and has made contributions to renowned legal commentaries. With two colleagues he conducted an interdisciplinary research project on colonialism and the evolution of Public International Law (with financial assistance by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). In 2016 he was elected Secretary-General of the Societas Iuris Publici Europaei (SIPE). Jörn Axel Kämmerer teaches mostly in German and English and has given lectures or lecture series at academic institutions of various countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa.

Dr. Andreas Kerkemeyer studied Law in Osnabrück, Strasbourg, and Berlin (Freie Universität) from 2005 to 2011. After his Law Studies he passed the First State examination in 2011 (Berlin). He conducted his legal traineeship (Referendariat) in Berlin, where he also passed his Second State Examination in 2013. Afterwards he wrote his PhD-thesis “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen bei der Regulierung von Derivaten“ which deals with the (proper) regulation of financial derivatives at the University Bielefeld. The PhD-thesis was published in 2018. Since 2016 he has been employed as a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Jörn Axel Kämmerer (Chair of Public Law, International and European Law) at Bucerius Law School. At the moment he is working on his post-doctoral dissertation (Habilitation) which will deal with the treatment of state secrets in Constitutional, Administrative, and International Law. His research focuses on Constitutional Law, European Law, Capital Markets Law, and Legal Theory.

Adem Koyuncu is double qualified as a lawyer and a medical doctor and is a Partner of the international law firm Covington & Burling LLP. He is based in Frankfurt and admitted to practice in Germany and Brussels. Dr. Koyuncu advises clients on EU and German law issues that affect pharmaceuticals, medical devices and other consumer products. He has a broad practice that covers regulatory, compliance, commercial and liability matters and he also assists clients in transactions.

Prior to joining legal practice, Dr. Koyuncu worked in the pharmaceutical industry and practiced as a medical doctor. He is a frequent lecturer at legal conferences and seminars and extensively publishes in his practice areas. Among others, he is co-author of the comparative law book "Practical Global Tort Litigation". He is also a member of the editorial boards of several legal journals. He is fluent in German, Turkish and English and speaks conversational Spanish.

For his practical and scientific work, Adem Koyuncu received the awards "Wissenschaftspreis im Gesundheitswesen" (2005) and the "Deutscher Arzt Recht Preis" (2008) and is listed as a leading lawyer in different rankings.

Dr. Nils Krause is a partner at the international law firm DLA Piper and works as a German qualified lawyer and solicitor (England / Wales) in the Hamburg office of DLA Piper. He heads the Corporate / M&A practice of the firm in Germany. His principal areas of practice are mergers and acquisitions, securities law and corporate law. Prior to working for DLA Piper, Nils Krause was a partner at White & Case and, in addition, worked in the investment banking department (Global Banking - M&A) of a leading international bank in Frankfurt.  Furthermore, he was a research student at Harvard Law School and visiting fellow at the University of Oxford. He lectures on corporate law at nationally and internationally renowned universities and is recognized by Legal 500 as "often recommended lawyer for corporate law" in Germany. In addition, Chambers Global recognizes him as "top transactional lawyer" for international M&A projects.

Stefan Kröll is Professor of International Dispute Resolution at Bucerius Law School and an independent arbitrator in Cologne (Germany). He is one of the directors of the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Court and a visiting professor at the School of International Arbitration, CCLS – Queen Mary College, London. He regularly lectures for other universities in Germany and abroad and is a member of the editorial or academic advisory board of several national and international journals. Professor Kröll is one of Germany’s national correspondents to UNCITRAL for arbitration and international commercial law and is regularly listed as one of the leading German Arbitration specialists and most in demand arbitrators. Educated at the Universities in Marburg, Geneva and Cologne, he holds a doctorate from the University of Cologne and a Master of Laws from the London School of Economics. Professor Kröll is the (co)author and (co)editor of a number of books and articles on international arbitration and litigation, and international commercial law.

Recipient of the MLB Best Teacher Award in 2008, together with Professor Larsen, for the course International Litigation II, in 2013 for the course International Sale of Goods and in 2016, 2017 and 2020 for the course Arbitration.

Prof. Dr. Christoph Kumpan, LL.M. (Univ. of Chicago), Attorney at law (New York) holds the Chair of Civil Law, Corporate Law and Capital Market Law at the Bucerius Law School sponsored by the Dr. Harald Hack Foundation. His research focuses on corporation and capital markets law, fiduciary law and market organization law including a comparative perspective with an emphasis on the U.S. and England and economic analysis of the law.

Before joining Bucerius Law School, Christoph Kumpan held the chair for Private Law, Company and Business Law, Comparative Law and Conflicts of Laws and was a director of the Institute for Economic Law at the Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg. Prior to these appointments, he worked as a guest professor at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin and as an acting professor at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Christoph Kumpan has worked as a research associate and senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. He spent two terms as a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK, was a member of the working group of the Commission of Stock Exchange Experts under the Federal Ministry of Finance, an advisory counsel to the Federal Ministry of Finance regarding prospectus liability, and a short-term-expert of the EU for takeover law harmonisation in Turkey. Now he is a member of the working group “Finanzmarktgesetzgebung beim Bundesministerium der Finanzen“ and of the New York bar.

Christoph Kumpan studied at the Humboldt University Berlin, the University of Heidelberg and The University of Chicago (LL.M.) and received his doctorate (on the regulation of alternative trading systems) and his Habilitation (on the law governing conflicts of interest) from the University of Hamburg. He received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation and the ZEIT Foundation, the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the Academic Award 2005 (1st Place) of the Deutsches Aktieninstitut and a scholarship of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Thilo Kuntz holds the chair for private law, commercial and corporate law, legal theory and is the managing director of the Institute for Corporate and Capital Markets Law at Bucerius Law School. After graduating from the University of Giessen (Erste Juristische Staatsprüfung/J.D. equivalent), clerkship at the lower court of appeals in Giessen and bar exam, he obtained an LL.M. degree at the University of Chicago Law School. Following his doctoral thesis on Management Buyouts, freelance work for a major German law firm, Thilo Kuntz completed his award-winning Habilitationsschrift on freedom of contract and venture-capital financing in the US and Germany, written at the University of Giessen and at Stanford Law School, where he spent some time as a visiting scholar. He taught as a visiting professor at the University of Konstanz and was a tenured professor (chair) at Bremen University before he moved to Bucerius Law School. Thilo Kuntz mainly works on private law, corporate law and legal theory, building on a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, drawing strongly from law and economics. He is especially interested in corporate finance with an emphasis on venture capital, corporate governance and fiduciary law, and issues at the threshold of law and the philosophy of language.

Since June 2019 Linda Kuschel holds the Junior Professorship for Civil Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Law and Digitalization at Bucerius Law School. She studied law at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. After her First State Exam in 2010, she completed her legal traineeship in Berlin (Second State Exam in 2012). In 2014 she received her LL.M.-degree from Harvard University and in 2018 her doctorate at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin with a dissertation on "The Acquisition of Digital Copies of a Work for Private Use".

Before joining Bucerius Law School, she was a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Katharina de la Durantaye, LL.M. (Yale) at Humboldt-Universität Berlin from June 2012 to June 2013 and from July 2014 to March 2018. From April 2018 until her appointment to Bucerius Law School, she worked for the Humboldt Law Clinic Internetrecht under the direction of Prof. Dr. Axel Metzger, LL.M. (Harvard).

Her research focuses on intellectual property law (especially copyright law and international aspects) and digital technologies.

Clifford Larsen is Professor for Anglo-American and Comparative Law at Bucerius Law School. From 2006 to 2021, he was the founding Dean of the Bucerius Master of Law and Business (LLM/MLB) Program. Professor Larsen received his B.A. from Tulane University, a B.A. and M.A. from Oxford University (where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar) and his J.D. from the University of Virginia. In 1993, after practice of law at White & Case in New York City and S.G. Archibald in Paris, Larsen received an offer of a professorship from Washington & Lee University. In his 13 years there, he published a number of articles, in German and English, primarily in the areas of arbitration and comparative law, became a full professor, and was named Director of International Legal Studies Programs. As well as teaching in Mexico and frequently in Cologne for the University of California, he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar and Commerzbank Visiting Professor of Law at the Bucerius Law School, during which time he taught in English in the International Program and in German in the LL.B. curriculum. He was admitted to the New York and Louisiana Bars and is avocat à la cour de Paris.

Recipient of the MLB Best Teacher Award in 2008, together with Prof. Dr. Kröll, for the course International Litigation II and in 2018 and 2019 for the course Arbitration.

Andreas E. Meier is the Chief Investment Officer of Lombard Assurance International S.A., Luxembourg, a global leader in insurance-based wealth structuring solutions, owned by The Blackstone Group L.P.

Before he joined Lombard, he worked for 15 years at UBS Group where among other functions, he was Head of Latin America and Regional Head Northern Germany.

Mr. Meier served as member of the Executive Board at UBS Germany between 2009 and 2016. He started his career at former Dresdner Bank Latin America in 1992. He is member of the presidency of the Latin American Business Association, Hamburg. He holds a degree (Lic. rer. pol.) in Business Administration from the University of Hamburg, with a special focus in Banking, Finance and Portfolio Management.

Matthias Meyer is full professor for management control and accounting at the Hamburg University of Technology. Before that he was an associate and assistant professor for management accounting at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar. He holds a habilitation degree (Dr. oec. publ. habil.) from WHU and a PhD (Dr. oec. publ.) in business economics from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, where he worked at the Chair of Philosophy and Economics. The topic of his dissertation was the principal agent model. He received his Diplom-Kaufmann in business administration from Eichstaett Catholic University and a master of science in the philosophy of social sciences from the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 2006, Matthias Meyer stayed as visiting scholar at the Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS) at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. His practical background in management accounting is his former position as the Managing Director of the Center for Controlling & Management at WHU where companies like DaimlerChrysler, Deutsche Telekom or Deutsche Lufthansa work together with researchers on management accounting topics. He has teaching experience in management accounting, cost accounting, corporate planning and strategic decision-making, economic methodology and business ethics.

Serden Ozcan is Chairholder of the Otto Beisheim Endowed Chair of Innovation and Corporate Transformation at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, and the Program Director of IESE-WHU High-Performance Board Member Program.

Prof. Ozcan is the founding director of the annual WHU Campus for Corporate Transformation event, where supervisory board and C-suite members from Europe’s largest companies share their personal and professional observations on corporate transformation. Prof. Ozcan is also the co-host of the brand new Leading Corporate Transformation: The WHU Podcast powered by PwC, where he and PwC’s European Head of Finance Transformation host some of Germany’s most prominent CEOs.

Frequently featured in the global media, Prof. Ozcan provides unique insights on issues concerning corporate transformation, entrepreneurship and innovation. He is also the founding director of the annual WHU Campus for Corporate Transformation event, where C-suite members from Europe’s largest companies share their personal and professional observations on corporate transformation. 

Mehrdad Payandeh is Professor of International Law, European Law and Public Law at Bucerius Law School. He studied law at Heinrich-Heine-University of Düsseldorf where he also finished his doctoral thesis in international law. After a legal clerkship that took him to the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations in New York, Hengeler Mueller, as well as the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany he obtained an LL.M. at Yale Law School. He returned to Heinrich-Heine-University as a research assistant and from 2012 until 2016 he worked there as a Junior Professor for International Law and Public Law. In 2016, he finished his habilitation with a thesis in constitutional law, before joining Bucerius Law School. Since 2020, Professor Payandeh is a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. His research focuses on international law, in particular human rights law and the law of the use of force, anti-discrimination law, as well as constitutional law and theory.

Natalia Ribberink is professor of Foreign Trade & International Management at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Business & Social Sciences.

In addition to her professorship at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences Natalia Ribberink holds visiting professor positions at the University of Rhode Island (USA), California State University Long Beach (USA), and has a position of external faculty member at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands). She regularly holds lectures for partner universities abroad, acts as a reviewer for some international academic journals, and has a number of publications in the field of international business.

Before being appointed as a professor Natalia Ribberink spent five years in the German aviation industry within a large airline alliance. She managed international projects in the area of strategic partnerships and was responsible for fare policies, contract management, accreditation procedures and staff recruiting & development. She combined this function with her Ph.D.-studies. Prior to that she worked as a Research Associate at the Faculty of Business & Social Sciences at the University of Applied Sciences in Osnabrueck.

Natalia Ribberink graduated with honours from the Belarusian State University in Minsk with a degree in the World Economy/International Economic Relations. As a winner of DAAD Award for Excellence she continued her education and research in Osnabrueck, Germany, where she obtained her second university degree in European Business Studies (Dipl.-Kffr.) and a Ph.D. in Economics.

Recipient of the MLB Best Teacher Award in 2015 for the course International Strategic Management.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Rönnau holds the Chair of Criminal Law, Criminal Business Law and Law of Criminal Procedure at Bucerius Law School. Born in 1962, Thomas Rönnau passed his First State Examination in 1987 and received his doctorate in 1990 in Kiel on the subject of "Plea Bargaining in Criminal Proceedings". After passing the Second State Examination in 1992 and working as a fully qualified lawyer in the legal department of a major North German company, he returned to the University of Kiel as a Research Assistant in 1994 and habilitated there in mid-1999 with a thesis on "Vices of Consent in Criminal Law". Since 2000, Prof. Rönnau has held the Chair for Criminal Law, Criminal Business Law and Law of Criminal Procedure at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg. During this time, he declined calls to the University of Göttingen (2005) and Münster (2006).

Prof. Rönnau's research focuses on Criminal Law in general (Doctrine of Wrongdoing and Guilt [here especially Dogmatics of Consent and Self-Defense]) and on Economic Criminal Law. In monographs, commentaries, academic essays and lectures he deals with the subjects of embezzlement and fraud, the Criminal Law of Limited Liability Companies, Corruption and the Law of Asset Confiscation as well as with Criminal Insolvency Law or Offences or Administrative Offences from the UmwG or the WpÜG. For many years, Prof. Rönnau has also been active in this area as an advisor for lawmakers and companies. He also regularly offers executive education courses for corporate lawyers and attorneys.

Professor Dr. Karsten Thorn holds the Chair for Civil Law, Private International and International Commercial Law, and Comparative Law at Bucerius Law School. He is co-director of the Center on International Dispute Resolution. From June 2014 through September 2015, he was also acting Dean.

Professor Thorn teaches and researches in different fields of Private International Law, International Commercial Law, and Comparative Law. 

From 2005 through 2009 he was the German director of the program of the Summer Law Institute in Souzhou, China, and since 2007, lecturer within a cooperation framework of Chinese legal training, e.g. the China European International Business School, Shanghai, or the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, as well as the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Berlin. In 2010, he was "Director of Studies in the Session of Private International Law for the Diploma Seminars 2010" of The Hague Academy of International Law; in the summer of 2016 he taught there a course on “The Protection of Weaker Business Parties in Private International Law”.

Prof. Thorn is among other academic or professional associations regional head of the German-American Lawyers Association, council member of the German Association for International Law and member of the German Council of International Private Law. He is author and editor of numerous publications, particularly of a commentary on International Private Law within the main commentary „Palandt“. He is co-publisher of “IPRax”, one of the most distinguished German law journals on conflict of laws.

Recipient of the MLB Best Teacher Award in 2021 for the course Legal Issues of Supply and Distribution (Chains).

Professor Wagner holds the Chair of Logistics Management and is Faculty Director of the HumOSCM Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). From 2008 to 2019 he was Director of the Executive MBA in Supply Chain Management (MBA ETH SCM). He worked in practice for almost 10 years prior to his academic career, namely as head of supply chain management for a Swiss-based technology group and as senior manager for an international top-management consulting firm. He obtained a MBA from Washington State University and a Ph.D. and Habilitation degree from the University of St. Gallen.

He has been a lecturer for supply chain management and related areas on the undergraduate, graduate and executive level at several universities. He has been recognized for his teaching with the MBA Program Best Teacher Award at the WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management (2006) and the “Golden Owl” Teaching Award at the ETH Zurich (2009 and 2013). In addition, he has consulted with and conducted executive training programs for leading companies and business associations.

He is an active researcher and has received numerous research awards. His research interests lie in the areas of supply chain management, purchasing and supply management, and logistics and transportation management - with a particular emphasis on strategy, networks and relationships, risk, innovation, digitalization, entrepreneurship, sustainability and humanitarian operations. He is author and editor of ten books and over one hundred book chapters and articles. He has published in journals such as Journal of Operations Management, Decision Sciences, European Journal of Operational Research, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, or California Management Review.

Recipient of the MLB Best Teacher Award in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020 for the course Logistics and Supply Chain Management.

Peter Witt is Professor of Technology and Innovation Management at the University of Wuppertal. He holds a degree in economics from the University of Bonn and a Ph.D degree in business administration from WHU. He received his habilitation degree at Humboldt University. From 2002 to 2006, Prof. Witt served as the Otto Beisheim Professor of Entrepreneurship at WHU, from 2006 to 2010 he was the director of the chair for Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Dortmund.

Professor Witt supports large international corporations like 3M, Bayer, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Börse, Fraport, London Stock Exchange, Metro Group, RWE, and Vaillant in their corporate venturing activities as well as in their executive education programs. From 2008 to 2015, he was the president of the largest German speaking entrepreneurship association (FGF e.V.).

Prof. Witt has won numerous teaching awards, e.g. the WHU Best Teacher Award in 1996, the Kellogg-WHU-EMBA Best Teacher Award in 2003, the Best Teacher Award of the Faculty for Economics at the University of Dortmund in 2008, 2009, 2010, the Best Teacher Award of the University of Wuppertal in 2011 and 2016, the Best Teacher Award of the EMBA Program at the University of Mainz in 2015 as well as the Best Teacher Award in WHU’s Full-Time MBA Program in 2015.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Alexander J. Wulf, MSc (LSE), MLB (BLS/WHU) studied law, business and economics, and research methods (2003-2008) in London, Hamburg and Berlin. He is a graduate of the first Bucerius Master of Law and Business class of 2007. Alexander J. Wulf held visiting positions among others at the University of California, Berkeley, Kyoto University and the University of Oxford. He is currently professor of business law at the Berlin School of Management at SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences (since 2015). In his research, Alexander J. Wulf studies the interdependence of law and economics, the role of law and legal institutions in economics and the application of empirical methodology to the study of law. His research focuses particularly on the empirical analysis of European Union commercial law.