Speakers
Stano Gejdos
is the Global Category Manager for Legal at Syngenta in Basel, Switzerland. He drives and optimizes external legal spend on a global scale for Syngenta Group. With a track record of delivering sustainable savings for the organization, Stano is actively driving legal spend towards alternative fee structures at Syngenta. His expertise extends beyond his procurement responsibilities, as he is also an integral member of the Legal Operations Leadership Team. With over 25 years of experience in Global Procurement, Stano has worked on strategic projects for companies including Hewlett-Packard and Volkswagen. He holds a degree from the University of Economics in Bratislava and serves in an advisory role to the Buying Legal Council.
Matthias Lichtblau, Ph.D.
is Director of Strategic Projects Europe and the Global Chief Operating Officer Germany at Dentons Europe, one of the largest and leading law firms in Europe and globally. He has more than 20 years of experience in the international management of professional service firms (namely Clifford Chance, CMS, WTS) before joining Dentons in June 2023. Prior to moving to Dentons, he was the Global Managing Director and Partner at WTS and before that he was the Global Executive Director of the international law firm CMS for eight years. Under his watch CMS revenue doubled to € 1.5 billion and 15 more countries (e.g., from Latin America, Africa and Scandinavia) joined the CMS organization. Matthias Lichtblau holds an MBA from the University of Mannheim (Germany) and an Executive MBA from Said Business School, University of Oxford (UK). He is author and speaker on professional service firm management topics.
Ava A. Moussavi
is a lawyer and the Head of Legal Operations & Tech at GvW Graf von Westphalen, a role she has held since 2022. She is in charge of the firm’s digitalisation strategy, leading its digital transformation, including the adoption of AI technologies for client services. Previously, she worked at the legal tech company Bryter, building out the EMEA business in the DACH, Benelux and UK markets. During this time she contributed to the company’s product development in the area of Machine Learning. Prior to transitioning into legal technology, she was a corporate M&A lawyer at one of London’s largest practices. Ava A. Moussavi is a member of the Law Society of England & Wales, the Law Society of Ireland, and the Bar Association of Berlin.
Freek Stähr
People centered transformation has become a red thread of Freek Stähr’s career. The other is curiosity and an eagerness to go beyond Legal. Stähr has many years of experience as an expert and leader in finance, business and legal functions. Today, he is leading a global legal organization at SAP. His organization is advising on a broad range of topics, including regulatory compliance, AI, M&A, Anti-Trust, IT Law, partnerships, procurement and marketing. Stähr’s responsibilities include driving the legal transformation in all relevant aspects, legal operations, and the AI strategy for the global legal function. In that role, he built up the legal operations function and developed and implemented an innovative, network-based approach to establishing a Compliance Management System for SAP’s Cloud solutions, including teams, processes, and tools. Stähr is the legal business partner to one of SAP’s Executive Board members and a member of SAP’s AI Ethics Steering Committee.
Achim Tschauder
is a business economist and was Director of Marketing and Business Development Germany for a major international law firm from 2008 to 2017. Prior to entering the legal market, he worked as Director Sales for American Express, as a Management Consultant for Computer Sciences Corporation and as Head of Operations for the KARSTADT travel agency chain. He is the initiator and program manager of the JUVE Legal Operations Conference, the JUVE Pricing Conference and the Bucerius Microsoft 365 for legal initiative. He works with legal departments and law firms to streamline operations, integrate innovative technologies and implement strategic solutions that prepare them for the future of the legal industry.
Dr. Hariolf Wenzler
is Co-Director of the Bucerius Centre on the Legal Profession. He was founder and board member of the European Legal Technology Association (ELTA) and initiator of Relnvent.Law, the first Legal Innovation Hub in continental Europe. His research interests are heavily focused on developments in the legal market, a subject on which de publishes widely and gives lectures at conferences and meetings. He is CEO of the law and tax consulting firm YPOG, where he is responsible for the firm’s corporate development and professionalisation and develops new, adjacent business areas with the help of legal technology. In this role, he is responsible for YSolutions, the unit that creates software-based legal services and was honoured with the Best of Legal award for innovative business models by ‘Wirtschaftswoche‘ in 2022. Hariolf holds a doctorate in economics and was responsible for European business development at Baker McKenzie before joining YPOG. Prior to that, he was Managing Director of Bucerius Law School in Hamburg for many years.
Dr. Pierre G. Zickert
is the Manager Legal Technology at the law firm Hengeler Mueller and, as Counsel, advises on legal matters related to digital transformation, as well as cloud and AI technologies. In his role, he oversees the firm’s advisory digitalization strategy, the cross-practice use of Legal Tech in mandates, and advises clients on their digital transformation. He is a member of the Expert Panel of the Legal-Tech Incubator ‘Collaborate’ in London, which promotes Legal Tech start-ups in collaboration with the law firms Slaughter and May and Hengeler Mueller. He is also a lecturer for Legal Tech & AI Governance at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena and an examiner in the Second State Examination in Law of the Free State of Bavaria for the elective subject IT Law and Legal Tech. He studied at the universities of Kiel, Strasbourg, Oxford, and earned his doctorate at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich.