About

Jan started his career at Hengeler Mueller in 1999. He focused on M&A and corporate work, including numerous restructurings, such as of Deutsche Bank, RWE, Mannesmann, Marconi, and General Electric, among others. In 2001, Jan joined EINSTEINet, a start-up founded by institutional investors like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Dresdner Kleinwort and Bear Sterns. As sole in-house counsel und company secretary, Jan was responsible for all legal aspects including a €120m debt in equity swap.

Between 2003 and 2008, Jan held various positions at Bayer, in Leverkusen. Among others, he headed the M&A team in the legal department and worked for two years as executive assistant to the former CFO, Klaus Kühn. During that time, Jan coordinated the €17bn public takeover of Schering, negotiated the US$590m sale of Bayer’s plasma division to US investors and managed a group wide savings program with realized savings of approx. €260m per year. In 2008, Jan took over as general counsel and group compliance officer of Munich based KraussMaffei, where he implemented a group wide compliance management system. After four years, Jan transitioned to ZF Friedrichshafen as general counsel. Between 2017 and 2021, in addition, Jan held the position of chief compliance officer. In his ten years with ZF, the company expanded its sales from €18bn to €40bn per year. The €10bn public takeover of TRW Automotive, in 2015, and the €8bn public takeover of WABCO, in 2019, significantly contributed to the growth. Most recently, under Jan’s supervision, ZF succeeded in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision on the applicability of U.S.C.A. 1782 to international arbitration. Jan’s team is comprised of 120 people between Europe, Americas and Asia Pacific. In 2015, he earned the JUVE-Award for the in-house team of the year (M&A). In 2019, he appeared on the The Legal 500 GC Powerlist: Germany. In 2020, he was awarded corporate counsel of the year by Lexology, in association with ACC. In addition, he was shortlisted by ILO, JUVE and azur for awards in various other years. He co-authored two legal commentaries on the German Stock Corporation Act. Jan is married and has three grown-up children.