About

After having worked for different international law firms, Dr Karsten Hardraht joined KfW’s legal division in 2006. Before being appointed as general counsel in 2016, he held different executive positions in KfW, including management affairs and regulatory compliance. In his role as general counsel, Hardraht implemented the concept of steering legal risk, established the role of the legal division within the concept of three lines of defence, improved the integration of legal in internal committees as well as the reporting and process-integrated role – ‘and we are working constantly on client focus and sharpening our risk culture. All that increased visibility and integration into KfW’s value chain – which also helps mitigate KfW’s legal risk’, he says. In addition, Hardraht’s legal function expanded and has been working on enhancing legal spend management, including the use of legal tech solutions for this and other purposes. ‘Legal tech solutions, even more standardisation of workflows and documentation and tailor-made agile methods for legal work will help us focus on what really matters and gain time for these projects in which the legal counsel like to work on the most and where they are mostly needed’, he explains. As head of KfW’s regulatory compliance, Hardraht also worked closely with the banking supervisory authorities, focused on internal processes and got deep insights into risk management. ‘This experience convinced me, that the role of a legal division should not be limited to giving legal advice but has to focus on actively steering legal risk’, he comments. In Hardraht’s view, ‘in-house legal will become even more integrated into and will have an even more active role in strategic as well as operational projects. Also, the role of legal operations in general – including legal tech solutions and legal spend management – will evolve constantly’.