Faculty
One of the most attractive features of the Bucerius Master of Law and Business – in cooperation with WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management – is the diverse faculty that includes renowned academics, as well as professors from the practising legal and business communities from both Germany and abroad.
Dean
Prof. Clifford Larsen
Dean of the Bucerius Master of Law and Business (LLM/MLB) Program
Lectures in:
Module 1: Foundations of Law and Business
Module 5/6: Electives
Module 9: Social Responsibility of an Enterprise
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 is a member of 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, in 2018 for the course Arbitration and in 2019 for the course Foundations of Law.
Program Directors
Christina Günther is Professor of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management and Co-Director of WHU’s Institute of Family Business and Mittelstand.
Professor Dr. Christina Günther studied international economics at the Universiteit Maastricht before she joined the Max Planck Institute of Economics in Jena as a research fellow. She completed her doctorate at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena in 2009.
From 2010 to 2014 Christina Günther worked as Assistant Professor for "Industrial Organization and Economics of Innovation" at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. Since April 2014, she holds the IHK-Chair for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and has carried out several research visits abroad. She is an Editor at two leading international journals, Small Business Economics and Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, and received numerous awards for her research. She serves as a member of the Executive Board of the Academy of Management, Entrepreneurship Division. Over the last years she gained broad experience in executive education and works as a consultant.
In her current research projects, she investigates the challenges in the growth processes of small and medium-sized enterprises, crowdfunding, as well as the relationship between ownership structure, location, innovation activity and competitiveness
Prof. Dr. Carsten Jungmann
Program Director Law
Prof. Dr. Carsten Jungmann is Program Director at Bucerius Law School. Inter alia, he coordinates the Diploma in Business Law Program at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. In addition, he is a practicing lawyer, formerly as a Managing Partner of the law firm DUVINAGE (Munich), today in his capacity as the Group Director Corporate Law & Structure of BIRKENSTOCK Group (Neustadt/Wied). Within the BIRKENSTOCK Group, he also serves as a member of the supervisory board.
His primary fields of research are insolvency law, corporate law (including corporate governance), banking law and corporate finance. Prof. Dr. Jungmann studied law at the University of Bonn and at the University of Edinburgh. At the University of Bonn, he worked at the Institute for Commercial and Business Law and graduated as a Doctor of Laws. Whilst a trainee solicitor, he worked inter alia with the international law firm Hogan Lovells and with HSH Nordbank; he also clerked for High Court Chief Judge Dr. Buechel. After passing the bar exam at the High Court of Hamburg, he went to the US and obtained an LL.M. from Yale Law School. In addition, Prof. Dr. Jungmann holds a Master of Science in Finance after studies at the University of Leicester (UK). He spent a year as an academic visitor at the London School of Economics and is/was a lecturer/visiting professor at several national and international universities (including, inter alia, the University of Surrey, the University of Fribourg, the University of Liechtenstein, the University of Luxemburg and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich). Prof. Dr. Jungmann has published numerous articles on corporate, banking and insolvency law in leading law journals. In 2011, he was awarded the Bucerius Alumni Prize for Outstanding Teaching.
Recipient of the MLB Best Teacher Award in 2009 and 2015 for the course Legal Aspects of Corporate Governance and in 2010 and 2011 for the course Business Entities (together with Prof. Dr. Karsten Schmidt).
Lecturers
Professor Aktas holds the Chair of Mergers and Acquisitions at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management since September 2013. He previously worked at Skema Business School (France), EMLYON Business School (France), and Louvain School of Management (Université catholique de Louvain). He was a visiting researcher at the Anderson School of Management (UCLA, Los Angeles) in 2001-2002. Being interested in empirical corporate finance in general, Professor Aktas is known for his research articles on Mergers and Acquisitions published in leading international journals including the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Finance, Economic Journal, Journal of Corporate Finance, and Journal of Banking & Finance. His research has been featured on the programs of leading international conferences, and quoted in widely read international media, such as the Financial Times and The New York Times. In terms of editorial activity, on top of providing refereeing service for leading academic journals and conferences, he is currently or has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of Corporate Finance, Review of Corporate Finance, and Revue Finance. Professor Aktas is also a member of the Supervisory Board of Pulcra Chemicals.
Christian Andres is full professor of Empirical Corporate Finance and Associate Dean Research at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vallendar, Germany. Before joining the WHU in early 2011 he held appointments at the universities of Bonn and Mannheim, Germany. He holds a master’s degree in economics and a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Bonn. During his academic career, he spent several months as a visiting scholar at the University of Sheffield, U.K., and at the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida, Gainesville, U.S.A.
His primary research interests are in the areas of empirical corporate finance and corporate governance, with an emphasis on payout policy, capital structure, corporate governance, and family ownership and control. He has published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Banking & Finance, the Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, the Journal of Corporate Finance, and the Journal of Empirical Finance, and contributed book chapters to a number of international books. Practical implications of his research have been covered in the media (Die Zeit, Handelsblatt, Spiegel Online, Süddeutsche, among others) and in various practice-oriented publications.
Christian used to work in the tax and audit industry. As an academic, he has also been active both in consulting and executive training in the areas of corporate finance and corporate governance for over a decade. In this capacity he has worked with both multinational corporations such as Abbott Laboratories, Adidas, Airbus, Bayer, and British Telecom, as well as smaller entities such as Postbank and the German Red Cross, and typical “Mittelstand” firms. Christian is also co-founder and academic adviser of a small software company in fintech.
Jernej Bergoc received his law degree from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2012 and graduated from the MLB Program at Bucerius Law School in 2013.
He began his professional career at Wieland Capital, a Munich-based family office. He then moved to the Birkenstock family investment company, where he most recently worked as Head of Finance. Jernej also co-authored a book on global development strategies and founded “The Legal Solution” – a corporate law competition for senior students, now the largest event of its kind in Slovenia.
Jernej is currently an MBA candidate at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
Yvonne Draheim is a Partner in the Hamburg Hogan Lovells Office. She studied law at the University of Hamburg and graduated in 1994, First State Exam. In 1995/1996, she continued with her master studies at the University of Stellenbosch/South Africa where she graduated in 1995 with her master of laws.
Yvonne Draheim's focus lies on intellectual property, in particular trademarks and designs as well as unfair competition law (e.g. comparative advertising, get-up protection), domain name disputes and copyright. Yvonne represents clients from different fields of business, e.g. consumer products, life sciences, textiles, energy, classical industries (e.g. automotive) as well as media, and in particular social media. She mainly works with international clients, e.g. from Europe and the US. Her work, to a large extent, refers to trademark and design right litigation including prior advice thereto, especially with international and cross-border impact (e.g. she worked for years on the famous Philips ./. Remington three-headed shaver cases regarding 3D marks; at present she is involved in the global Merck vs. Merck litigation). Furthermore, she advises on strategic international portfolio management as the basis of a successful enforcement of trademark and design rights in Germany and elsewhere. In addition, she also advises clients on contracting, e.g. licences and prior rights and delimitation Agreements.
Yvonne Draheim continually publishes articles on up-to-date questions of IP law, e.g. on new kinds of trademarks (she was involved in registering the first haptical trademark in the world, the word "Underberg" in Braille), such as abstract color and color combination marks as well as move marks and on trademark portfolio strategy. She is also experienced in teaching IP law on various occasions, and has been teaching international and national students at the Bucerius Law School for years. Yvonne Draheim is a member of the German Association for the Protection of Industrial Property and Copyright (GRUR) as well as the International Trademark Association (INTA). According to JUVE, she belongs – for many years – to the “often recommended attorneys”.
Yamila Eraso is a counsel at LACORE Rechtsanwälte PartG mbB, a Berlin-based corporate law firm with a strong focus on startups/venture capital. She has ample experience advising entrepreneurs, early-stage companies and investors on company’s formation and financing rounds as well as cross-border business, in particular involving the U.S. and Latin America. She is also highly involved with the development of tokenization projects and frequently participates as speaker regarding business and regulatory matters of blockchain technology.
Yamila was a partner at TLDR Global, an advisory firm that specialised in blockchain projects. She has worked as a lawyer for prominent law firms in Colombia and the U.S., as well as in-house legal counsel for a German crowd-lending startup in Berlin.
Yamila received her first law degree (with honors) from Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, she holds a postgraduate diploma in tax law from the same University, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and she is also an MLB alumna of the 2013 class.
Yamila is admitted as a lawyer in the State of New York and the Republic of Colombia.
Prof. Dr. Dries Faems
Lecturer Business
Prof. Dr. Dries Faems holds the Chair of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technological Transformation at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. He also is a Visiting Professor at the LUISS University in Rome. Before joining the WHU, he was Assistant Professor (2007-2009) and Associate Professor (2009-2011) at the University of Twente and Full Professor of Innovation & Organization at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen (2011-2018). He holds a master’s degree in Commercial Engineering (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2001, magna cum laude) and became a Doctor in Applied Economics (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, June 2006) with a thesis titled: “Collaboration for Innovation: Processes of Governance and Learning in R&D Alliances.” His current research focuses on collaboration for innovation. In particular, he studies how alliance activities influence firms’ innovation and financial performance and how firms can effectively manage different types of open innovation strategies.
Michael Friedman received an A.B. in Economics (magna cum laude) from the University of Southern California and subsequently studied law at the University of California at Berkeley. He received his Juris Doctor in 1993 and became a member of the California State Bar in 1994. Mr. Friedman practiced law as a senior attorney and litigator in the San Francisco Bay area with the Contra Costa County Office of the Public Defender. He has lived in Hamburg since 2004 and works as a legal editor at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law; his efforts there have included revision of the Encyclopedia of European Private Law. In addition to having lectured on negotiation at Bucerius Law School, he has taught with the GISMA Business School in Hanover and has presented on negotiation for the Deutsch-Amerikanische Juristen Vereinigung (German-American Lawyers Association) and the African Good Governance Network (AGGN).
Recipient of the MLB Best Teacher Award in 2012 for the course Negotiation II.
Rolf Uwe Fülbier is full professor of international accounting at the University of Bayreuth. Before his appointment in Bayreuth, he was full professor at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (2005-2008), assistant professor at the University of Bochum (1999-2004) and Ph.D student at the University of Münster (1994-1998). He studied business administration at the University of Cologne, financed by a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes), and worked for several years for the Deutsche Bank AG in Germany and Indonesia (Jakarta branch). Since 2005 Rolf Uwe Fülbier has been an appointed tax consultant (Steuerberater).
His field of research covers all aspects of financial accounting and reporting, especially international accounting (IFRS, US-GAAP). Rolf Uwe Fülbier is author of a huge variety of books, book sections and articles in national and international research and practitioner journals. He is an editorial board member of “Accounting in Europe” (Taylor & Francis), the European publication outlet for policy oriented accounting research, of “Business and Research” (Springer), the official journal of the German Academic Association of Business Research (VHB), “Journal of Business Economics” (Springer) and of “Accounting, Economics and Law – A Convivium” (de Gruyter). Moreover, he was a visiting scholar/professor at TU Sofia, University of Oxford, Victoria University of Wellington and Macquarie University Sydney, he has been involved in several graduate and executive programs of leading Universities and is a member of the German CPA-examination board. Currently, he is also chairman of the German speaking accounting research community of the VHB. He has been honoured with several best teaching (e.g., WHU, University of Bayreuth), research and other awards. His textbook “International Accounting” (Internationale Rechnungslegung), coauthored with Pellens (Bochum), Gassen (Berlin) and Sellhorn (Munich), received the VHB-Monograph Prize in 2018.
Nicole Gottschalck is Assistant Professor for ‘Personnel Economics’ at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. Her research focuses on employer-employee relationships in the context of small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) and differences in organizational behaviour across hierarchy levels. She conducted her doctoral studies on contingency perspectives of employee retention at the WHU with research visits in the USA at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the Pace University in New York. Nicole has served as a lecturer and teaching assistant in various undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs and acted as a reviewer and chair for several academic conferences. A social scientist by trade, she studied at the University of Gießen (Germany), the University of Bristol (UK), the Institut Européen (France), the Bilgi University (Turkey), and the University of Leipzig (Germany).
Prof. Dr. Martin Jacob
Lecturer Business
Lectures in:
Module 4: Internationalization of an Enterprise
Professor Martin Jacob holds the adidas endowed Chair of Finance, Accounting, and Taxation at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. He received his diploma degree in business administration and his doctoral degree from the University of Tübingen, Germany. His extensive international experience stems from working with the Expert Group of Public Economics of the Swedish Ministry of Finance and from research visits at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies.
Professor Jacob has numerous publications in the field of business taxation. He is the co-author of two policy reports for the Swedish government as well as one policy report for the Committee on Equality in Sweden that are widely cited in media, political debates, and standard setting processes. He has further published in several leading international journals including the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research, the Review of Financial Studies, the Accounting Review, and the Journal of Accounting and Economics. He further serves as Associate Editor of the European Accounting Review and Accounting & Business Research since 2016. His research has been widely cited in newspapers as well as policy debates.
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.
Adem Koyuncu is double qualified as lawyer and medical doctor and is a Partner of the international law firm Covington & Burling LLP. He is based in Brussels and 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 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 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.
Prof. Dr. Stefan Kröll
Lecturer Law
Lectures in:
Orientation Program
Module 4: Internationalization of an Enterprise
Module 5/6: Electives
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.
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.
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 appointment, 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 and the Academic Award 2005 (1st Place) of the Deutsches Aktieninstitut and a scholarship of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
Prof. Dr. Linda Kuschel
Lecturer Law
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.
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.
Prof. Dr. Matthias Meyer
Lecturer Business
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.
Prof. Ozcan (Phd, Copenhagen Business School) is Associate Dean and Otto Beisheim Endowed Chair holder of Innovation and Corporate Transformation at WHU, where he is also the Academic Director of Executive Education. As an expert on entrepreneurial finance, private equity, activist shareholders, corporate entrepreneurship and corporate transformation, Professor Dr. Ozcan is the recipient of multiple international research awards and his work has been published in top academic journals.
Prof. Ozcan teaches courses for FTMBA, PTMBA and Kellogg-WHU Executive MBA, as well as for several open and customized executive education programs at WHU. Prof. Ozcan has taught at the Copenhagen Business School and National University of Singapore Business School and has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University and the University of Chicago, among others.
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.
Prof. Dr. Mehrdad Payandeh
Lecturer Law
Lectures in:
Module 9: Social Responsibility of an Enterprise
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.
Dr. Morten Petersenn is a partner at the Hamburg office of Hogan Lovells International LLP and a member of their IP, media & technology (IPMT) practice. He specializes in the field of trade mark, design and unfair competition law. Moreover, he advises companies in disputes related to false advertisements or internet related conflicts, such as domain name conflicts, litigation regarding false online marketing or trade mark use through foreign websites. Dr. Petersenn is also representing clients in any kind of litigation proceedings related to the violation of IP rights, in particular copyright claims and false advertisings. His clients include companies from the food, telecom and consumer industries.
Morten Petersenn completed his law studies at the Universities of Göttingen, Salamanca (Spain) and the University of Capetown (South Africa), where he conducted studies for his thesis for his PhD degree. Before joining the Hamburg office Dr. Petersenn worked at Hogan Lovells' office in Alicante, where he focused on Community trade mark and Community design law, for example advising clients in proceedings before the Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market (OHIM), which is located in Alicante.
Prof. Dr. Natalia Ribberink
Lecturer Business
Lectures in:
Module 4: Internationalization of an Enterprise
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.
Christian Stoll is partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells in Hamburg. He is active in Intellectual Property Law. Mr. Stoll has extensive experience in intellectual property litigation, with particular focus on patent litigation, and in the licensing of intellectual property and technology. He advises and represents multiple international companies that are active in the fields of engineering, telecommunications, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and nutrition in the area of patent law and IP licensing. Christian Stoll studied law at the University of Hamburg and Notre Dame University. He frequently holds seminars on patent litigation and IP licensing.
Prof. Dr. Karsten Thorn
Lecturer Law
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.
Dr. Nele Julie Todsen is an Associate Legal Counsel in the Hamburg office of Google Germany GmbH.
Nele completed her law studies at the Universities of Hamburg and Cologne. After her First State Exam in Law she worked for an international law firm in Hamburg and London and wrote her doctoral thesis which focused on telemedia and broadcasting law. Before her admission as a lawyer, Nele served as a judge.
Eva Vonau is a German lawyer and founding partner of the IP Boutique Slopek Vonau Rechtsanwälte PartG mbB. The firm specializes in IP law as well as unfair competition and media law.
Before deciding to pursue her passion for law, Eva Vonau was first a technical assistant for audio and video productions at one of the biggest TV and Film production sites in Germany. This allows her a unique perspective on all questions relating to media, creativity and technology.
Eva Vonau studied law at the University of Kiel and worked as a research assistant there for two years after finishing her degree. Her PhD thesis focused on copyright law. She started her career as a lawyer in the IP, media & technology (IPMT) practice of Hogan Lovells LLP in Hamburg.
Today she uses her first-hand experience in the media industry to provide practical advice on all legal questions related to copyright, media and unfair competition law in her own law firm. She understands herself as a translator between creatives and lawyers. The focus of her work lies on the development of strategies for the protection of creative work, representing clients in court proceedings and conducting contract negotiations.
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.
Prof. Dr. Peter Witt
Lecturer Business
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. iur., Dr. rer. pol. Alexander Wulf
Lecturer Business
Lectures in:
Module 1: Foundations of Law and Business
Prof. Dr. iur. Dr. rer. pol. 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 SRH Hochschule Berlin (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.
