Last year’s Speakers

Dr. Arno Balzer is the publisher of the German business magazine BILANZ, which belongs to Axel Springer. Before joining BILANZ in 2014, he was the editor-in-chief of the German edition of Manager Magazin and publisher of the German version of Harvard Business Manager.
Born 1958 in Biedenkopf/Lahn, Dr. Arno Balzer studied Economics at the University of Mainz and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in Economics in 1987. Following his studies, he started his career in journalism at the magazine WirtschaftsWoche.

Mr. Brunier is the head of Accenture‘s Financial Services Strategy as well as Technology Strategy Practices in the German spoken area and is based in Zurich. He has specialized in Disruptive Business Models e.g. Open Banking and AI, in BizTech-driven transformation e.g. analytics, digital service models and in ZBX e.g. Blockchain, Zero Operations. Mr. Brunier is active senior advisor at various Global and European universal / private banks and capital markets services provider. He holds an MBA from the Fuqua Business School, Duke University, USA and a Master of Science in Mechanical and Process Engineering from the University of Nuremberg, Germany.

Since April 2013, Rolf Buch has been CEO of Vonovia (former Deutsche Annington), Germany’s leading residential real estate company. Mr. Buch studied Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration at RWTH Aachen. In 1991, he started his career with Bertelsmann, where he later became a Board Member and CEO of Arvato. Under Mr. Buch’s management, Arvato became a global BPO-service provider with more than 60,000 employees in more than 40 countries.

Horst von Buttlar has been editor-in-chief of the German edition of the monthly business magazine Capital since 2013. In 2011, he became a Bucerius Fellow at Harvard University in Cambridge, USA.
Born in 1975 in Hamburg, Horst von Buttlar studied History and Politics at Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg, the University of Saint Petersburg, and Humboldt-University Berlin. In 2004, he started his career as a journalist at the Financial Times in Germany. Furthermore, he is a member of the curatorship of the Johanna-Quandt Foundation.

Dr. Julian Deutz, born in 1968, studied Business Administration at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, at Georgetown University in the USA, and in Aix-en-Provence in France. In 1994, he started his career at OC&C Strategy Consultants. Afterwards, he was nominated as Head of Finance and Controlling at Steilmann-Group. After holding leadership positions, such as Head of M&A/Investor Relations at pixelpark and Chief Financial Officer at Venturepark, he returned to Steilmann Group as Chief Financial Officer.
Since 2004, Dr. Julian Deutz has been working at Axel Springer. In January 2014, he was appointed a Member of the Board, and since April 2014, has been Chief Financial Officer and Chief Human Resources Officer.

Lutz Diederichs has been Chairman of the Management Board of BNP Paribas Germany since March 2017.
He was born in 1962 and studied National Economics at the University of Bonn. Diederichs started his professional career as a trainee in Corporate- and Real Estate Banking at the Bayerische Vereinsbank where he became Senior Director of the Large Corporates & Commercial Real Estate Financing Department.Afterwards, he was appointed as a Member of the Board at UniCredit Bank (“HypoVereinsbank”), responsible for Corporate & Investment Banking and Commercial Banking.
After transitioning to BNP Paribas Germany, he became Chairman of the Management Board in March 2017.

Andrea Federico is a Partner at Oliver Wyman in Rome, Head of the Public Policy practice in EMEA and Managing Partner of Oliver Wyman – SPP. This is the new alliance with Systemic Policy Partnership created in response to the fast changing and increasingly challenging landscape faced by central banks and financial sector Authorities in general. For over 10 years Andrea has been assisting authorities across EMEA responding to their challenges around governance, financial stability and effectiveness, and efficiency of prudential and conduct supervision and resolution. Andrea’s background is Economics, which was his speciality before joining Oliver Wyman back in 1998. Andrea has been a longstanding member within the Italian chapter of Aspen Institute. He graduated from the University of Rome La Sapienza completing a thesis on public finance.

Mr. Fischer studied Business Administration at the University of Bielefeld and Georgia, USA. In 1985, he began his Investment Banking career at J.P. Morgan. After ten years he moved to Dresdner Bank where he was appointed as a Member of the Board. In 2001, Mr. Fischer also became a Member of the Board at Allianz.
After another year, he left Dresdner Bank and was named CEO of Winterthur and Member of the Board of their parent company Credit Suisse. He gained experience as Chief Executive Officer of BHF Kleinwort Benson Group from 2009 onwards and became Co-Chief Executive Officer in 2007. Since April 2011, he has been a Board Member at Glencore, a multinational commodity trading and mining company as well as the world’s third largest family business.

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Dr. Bernhard Günther, born in 1967, is currently serving as the Chief Financial Officer of innogy. After his studies in Economics in St. Gallen and Oxford, Bernhard Günther worked as a management consultant at McKinsey for five years. Afterwards, he returned to St. Gallen where he received his PhD.
In 1999, he started at RWE as Head of Group Controlling, and became Managing Director in 2007. From 2012 to 2016, he was a member of the Executive Board of RWE and moved to innogy in April 2016 where he has continued his work as Chief Financial Officer.

Dr. Dirk Holländer is a Director working in zeb’s Frankfurt and London offi ces. His focus are fi nance, risk and treasury topics, specializing in how to maximize the value-add of these functions to today’s banks.
He has over 17 years of project experience with UK & European banks ranging from very small regional players to G-SIBs. In addition to project work, he is responsible for staffi ng and recruiting at zeb and leads its Strategic Finance Practice.
Dr. Dirk Holländer has published many articles, books, and studies – including zeb’s well-renowned UK & European
Banking Study. Dr. Dirk Holländer joined zeb right after finishing his education with stints at universities in Germany, the US, and Australia – graduating with a PhD in Economics.

Timotheus Höttges, born in 1962, has been Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Telekom since January 2014.
Mr. Höttges studied Business Administration at the University of Cologne, after which he spent three years with a business consulting company. At the end of 1992, he moved to the VIAG Group in Munich. He became a Divisional Manager in 1997 and, later, a member of the extended Management Board responsible for controlling, corporate planning, and mergers and acquisitions. As a project manager, he played a central role in the incorporation of VIAG and VEBA to form E.on, effective as of September 27, 2000.
From 2009 until his appointment as CEO, he was a member of the Group Board of Management responsible for Finance and Controlling.
From 2006 to 2009, he was a member of the Board of Management responsible for the T-Home unit. Under his leadership, T-Home became the market leader regarding new DSL customers and developed its Internet TV service, Entertain, into a mass-market product while at the same time stabilizing its profitability.
After successfully implementing various cost-cutting programs at T-Home and in the European mobile communications subsidiaries, Mr. Höttges became responsible for the group-wide Save for Service efficiency enhancement program. From 2005 until being appointed to the Group Board of Management, Mr. Höttges headed the European operations as a Member of the Board of Management at T-Mobile International. From 2000 until the end of 2004, he was Managing Director, Finance, and Controlling, before becoming Chairman of the Managing Board of T-Mobile Deutschland.

Dr. Christian Jahn is a Partner in the Finance Department in the Munich office of Latham & Watkins. His broad practice includes acquisition finance, syndicated corporate loans, real estate finance, and restructurings. He has advised German and international banks and investors on complex financings and restructurings of cross-border acquisitions and cross-over corporate loans. He also counsels clients on the financing aspects of private equity and other M&A transactions. 
Mr. Jahn is listed as a “highly regarded” and “recommended” lawyer for bank lending and acquisition finance (IFLR1000 2018, JUVE 2017/2018). He is recognized as an “up and coming” lawyer for banking and finance and as a “foreign expert” for China (Chambers Europe Germany 2017, Chambers Global 2017). Clients say: “He thinks very commercially and combines an overview of even the most complex economic circumstances with excellent legal expertise.” (Chambers Europe Germany 2017). In addition to his legal education in Germany, Dr. Jahn studied Chinese (Mandarin) and Chinese law at the University of Nanjing. He has published several articles on Chinese law and is a member of the German-Chinese Lawyers’ Association

Dr. Markus Krall is Managing Director at goetzpartners in the Frankfurt office and heads the group of Financial Institutions and Risk Management.
During his career, he has successfully managed a global portfolio of projects in risk management and strategy for banks and insurance companies across the whole world.
Prior to joining goetzpartners, he was a Senior Partner at Roland Berger. Dr. Markus Krall has a PhD in Economics and wrote his thesis at the Imperial University in Nagoya as a recipient of the Japanese government’s Monbusho Scholarship.

Robert Lempka is the Co-Founder and CEO of ayondo, a company that offers both a sophisticated online trading platform for experienced individuals investing in CFDs and spread betting, and a leading Social Trading platform. While investing in business models and technologies that were aiming at more efficiency in financial markets, Robert concentrated on developing ayondo into a leading provider of trading and investment services for retail and institutional clients.
Robert was CEO of ABN AMRO market index, a next-generation trading platform, and prior to that he held trading management positions (Managing Director Fixed Income Trading) at Dresdner Kleinwort in Frankfurt and Goldman Sachs International in London (Executive Director Repo Trading). He graduated from Trier University and was educated at Dublin City and UCLA. ayondo has offices in Singapore, London, Zug/Switzerland, Madrid, and Frankfurt.

Jans Meckel is a member of the EMEA Financing Group and heads the risk management effort for the German-speaking region at Goldman Sachs. Previously, he worked in the Securities Division in London and Frankfurt.
Jans Meckel joined Goldman Sachs in 2002 as an Analyst and was named Managing Director in 2011. He earned a degree in Business from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in 2002.

Ms. Navidi is the Founder and CEO of BeyondGlobal, a consulting firm advising on macroeconomic and strategic
positioning. Previously, she worked closely with economist Nouriel Roubini as Director of Research Strategies and Senior Relationship Manager at Roubini Global Economics.
Ms. Navidi holds a Master-of-Law Degree in Banking Corporate and Finance law from Fordham University School of Law, USA. She is admitted to practice law in the Federal Republic of Germany as well as in the State of New York. As an expert commentator on financial markets, Ms. Navidi has given over 600 interviews on international media outlets and has keynoted at dozens of large industry events. She is also the bestselling author of $uperHubs: How the Financial Elite and their Networks Rule Our World, one of Bloomberg’s Best Books of 2016.

Johan Van Overtveldt became the Minister of Finance of Belgium in 2014.
The Minister, born in 1955, received his Masters in Economics at the University of Leuven. He started his career as a journalist for Trends in 1978 and became Editor-In-Chief in 1992. Afterwards, he served as Advisor to Group VCR and General Director of VKW before finally returning to Trends a second time in 2010. As of 2012, he is a part-time professor in Macroeconomics at the University of Hasselt.
In 2013, he made his entry into politics and became an economic advisor for N-VA (New Flemish Alliance). During the elections in 2014, he was the first candidate on the European List and was elected as Member of the European Parliament. In October, the same year, he took on the mandate of Minister of Finance in the current government of Michel I.

Viswas Raghavan is the Chief Executive Officer for J.P. Morgan in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). Based in London, he has over 25 years of experience in corporate finance. As CEO for EMEA, Mr. Raghavan works with the Senior Country Officers and business heads across J.P. Morgan to ensure that clients can take full advantage of the firm's local knowledge and global capabilities across all businesses.Before he was appointed to his current role, he was Head of Global Equity Capital Markets at J.P. Morgan. Before that, Mr. Raghavan was head of J.P. Morgan’s Debt and Equity Capital Markets’ businesses for Europe & Asia Pacific. He has been an integral part of J.P. Morgan’s EMEA business since joining from Lehman Brothers in 2000, where he was Head of Equity-Linked Capital Markets for Europe & Asia.
Mr. Raghavan graduated from The University of Bombay, India, with a Bachelor in Physics and holds a Bachelor honors degree in Electronic Engineering & Computer Science from Aston University, Birmingham. He is also a Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales. In 2016, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Science (DSc) from Aston University.

Dr. Martin Reitz is Country Head for Rothschild in Germany and leads the Global Advisory business for the German-speaking countries.
He also serves as Deputy Head of the Global Corporate Finance Business of the Rothschild Group. From 2001 to 2009, he worked for UBS, where he held various roles within the organization, notably as Joint Head Investment Banking Germany. Previously, he was the Chief Financial Officer of Concept, a participation of WPP group, and has worked in M&A teams of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Schröder Münchmeyer Hengst.
Dr. Martin Reitz studied Mechanical Engineering and Business Administrationat the Technical University of Darmstadt. He was a Student at the Department of Economics of Stanford University and obtained a PhD degree in Economics (Dr. rer. pol.) from the Technical University of Darmstadt.He has advised a large number of German and international clients on strategy and capital structure as well as on a wide range of M&A, debt, and equity transactions in a variety of different sectors around the world.

Alexander Roos joined The Boston Consulting Group in 1998 and later helped build the firm's Berlin office. As Senior Partner and Managing Director, he is the Global Leader of BCG's Corporate Development Practice Area.
In addition to that, he is also leading the firm's European Corporate Finance Task Force.
Before joining BCG, Roos worked at a mid-sized consulting company and did internships with several companies in consumer, industrial goods and consulting. Besides his Master's degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Stuttgart he holds as well a Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Connecticut.

Prof. Markus Rudolf is Dean of WHU and, since 1998, has been full Allianz Professor of Finance at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. He earned his PhD degree in fall 1994 and his habilitation degree in May 1999, both at the University St. Gallen, Switzerland. His recent publications focus on Banking and Private Banking, on the sovereign risk crises, on asset and risk management, and on derivatives pricing. He is Co-Editor of the journal "Financial Markets and Portfolio Management" and acts as Academic Director for the Campus for Finance – WHU New Year's Conference. He holds a supervisory board position at Boeker & Paul.

Stephen Schaefer is Professor of Finance at London Business School (LBS). He publishes mainly on fixed income, markets, credit risk, and financial regulations and has won several awards for his research. Professor Schaefer was formerly based in Stanford as well as he was Visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia, Berkeley, Cape Town, and Chicago. Besides his academic life, he has also contributed to several financial institutions as well as to reports for the Norwegian Ministry of Finance. He studied Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Cambridge.

With 25 years experience in finance, Mr. Schellenberg became CEO of Merck Finck Privatbankiers in 2017. He is responsible for the investment strategy, asset management, customer relationship, and the project management office. Previously, he was a member of the executive committee at UBS Deutschland and Head of Global Asset Management Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe. Mr. Schellenberg completed his Master of Business Administration at the University of Marburg and Cologne.

Dr. Joachim von Schorlemer is a member of the board of ING-DiBa and among other tasks responsible for ING Wholesale Banking in Germany, Austria and Czech Republic.
He started his professional career in 1983 at J.P. Morgan and spent time in treasury, fixed income, and M&A. After 6 years with Deutsche Bank, he joined Credit Suisse as Co-Head Investment Banking Germany. In 2004, he joined BNP Paribas where he became Country Head, responsible for establishing the market position of BNP in Germany. From 2013 to 2015, he was responsible for wholesale banking in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland for The Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

Prof. Clemens Sialm is Professor of Finance and Economics, the Eleanor T. Mosle Fellow, and Director of the AIM Investment Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Research Associate in the Asset Pricing and Public Economics programs of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
Professor Sialm received a Master’s in Economics from the University of St.Gallen in Switzerland and a PhD degree in Economics from Stanford University. Before joining the University of Texas, he taught at Stanford University and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Sialm's research interests are focused on investments, asset pricing, and taxation. He analyzes the investment strategies, performance, and behaviors of institutional and individual investors. His research has been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, and the Journal of Public Economics, among others. He obtained the Research Excellence Award from the McCombs School of Business in 2011. Sialm’s research has frequently been cited in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Economist.

Walter Sinn is Managing Director at Bain & Company Germany since 2014 and was previously Head of the German/Swiss financial services practice. He has over 25 years of experience in consulting with a focus on financial services and banking. Mr. Sinn worked for Boston Consulting Group before, where he was closely involved in the integration process of the Dresdner Bank into the Commerzbank.
He has significant expertise in process optimization, organizational restructuring, turnaround management as well as strategic development. Mr. Sinn studied at the University of Mannheim and at ESSEC Paris, where he obtained a Diploma in Business Administration. Afterwards, he started his career at Deutsche Bank.

Mr. Jens Tschauder serves as Managing Partner at ACXIT Capital Partners. He joined Acxit in 2009 and currently focuses on equity capital markets, public mergers and acquisitions for institutional investors, and financial institutions. He served as Managing Director of Equity Sales Germany at Nomura/Lehman Brothers. He also served as Head of Equity Sales Germany at Goldman Sachs.
In 1999, Mr. Tschauder joined the institutional equity sales organization of Goldman Sachs, where he played a leading role during the following six years in the placement of equity and equity related products to leading German fund management institutions. During this time, he participated in more than 100 primary and secondary capital markets transactions. He was furthermore responsible for the distribution of the institutional research product of Goldman Sachs to leading individuals in the German fund management business.
He joined Lehman Brothers’ corporate finance practice in 1994. Following an assignment with Goldman Sachs Asset Management to lead third party distribution of active, quantitative and alternative fund products, Mr. Tschauder rejoined Lehman Brothers in 2007 to lead the equity sales business in Germany and Austria. He has more than 17 years of experience in global investment banking. During this time, Mr. Tschauder has been involved in corporate finance transactions such as mergers and acquisitions, debt financings and initial public offerings as well as capital markets related activities including institutional research and asset management fund distribution. He is a graduate with a degree in Business Administration from the European Business School near Wiesbaden.

Dr. Johannes Watzl has been working on cloud exchange concepts for eight years. Prior, Dr. Watzl has been working at Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange as the Head of Product Management for three years, where he gained valuable experience in the development of the ecosystem around the cloud exchange.
Dr. Watzl co-founded the Cloud Commodities Exchange (CCEX) and Data73 in 2017. CCEX enables Cloud Computing Resources to be traded similar to traditional commodities such as crude oil, gas, or electricity via existing exchanges such as the Singapore or London Exchange. Data73 provides services around artificial intelligence and data analytics which, due to Dr. Watzl, will have a significant impact on trading in the future since 80% of all global trades will be processed by bots.