About

Based in Stuttgart, Dennis Grabherr currently serves as vice president and associate general counsel at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, covering DACH, France and Northern Europe with support from his international legal team of 25 lawyers, in which ten are based in Germany. Previously, he worked for BT Global Services for more than a decade. Talking about his experience at BT, Grabherr says, ‘the insights gained during my legal data governance role with BT Global Services – at the time one of the largest data processors on earth, have fundamentally changed my approach towards customer and personal data handling‘. In his current role, Grabherr and his team was largely involved in the regional implementation of what Grabherr says has been referred to as “the largest corporate separation in recent years”: the split of Hewlett-Packard Company into two separately listed entities, HP Incorporated and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company. ‘This (and multiple spin-mergers and acquisitions thereafter) taught me how large parts of the corporate work, which otherwise would be been handled by outside counsel, can effectively and cost-efficiently be handled in-house‘, he comments. Over the next few years, Grabherr expects to see ‘increased use of metrics and legal tech tools as well as growing visibility and relevance of general counsel at board level‘.