Focus on: my role in the Latam region

With about 20 years of cross-border banking and finance experience involving also numerous significant projects in Latin America, Timo Matthias Spitzer is head of legal at the Frankfurt branch of the Spanish financial giant Banco Santander. He manages the legal aspects of corporate and investment banking transactions including, inter alia, Latam deals of multinational companies headquartered in the DACH and Nordic Region as well as their Latam subsidiaries. In this respect, Spitzer is frequently in the region, interacting with numerous players in the local market. Prior to joining Santander in 2015, he conducted a very thorough analysis of the legal and economic landscape in connection with the Brazilian market entry of Norton Rose Fulbright which received special mention and praise by their former global chief executive Peter Martyr. Spitzer also worked for the Brazilian unit of Linklaters in São Paulo, dealing with corporate finance and M&A transactions as well as with emission trade. He also spent time at Terra Roxa Investimentos, an Investment Promotion Agency in the Northern Parana State in Brazil, analysing opportunities and bringing together German multinational corporations with Brazilian enterprises. Being a native German, Spitzer speaks, inter alia, fluent Portuguese and Spanish, facilitating a seamless communication across geographies. He is in close contact and cooperation with Santander’s Brazilian team led by general counsel Alessandro Tomao and will also attend the bank’s Global Legal Offsite to be held in Brazil in October as well as with all other general counsel and teams across the Latam region. Spitzer has worked in various functions with numerous highly distinguished professionals active in the Latam market, such as Stephen Hood, Christian Roschmann, David Fenwick, Anthony Oldfield, Donald Baker, Gregory Harrington and Roberto Pary. In addition to supporting numerous pro-bono initiatives, Spitzer is giving back to the community as a board member and adjunct professor at the Institute for Law and Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt in a globally recognised Top 10 Master programme for banking, finance and securities law and has also employed staff from Brazil, Colombia and Spain in his legal team. Spitzer is the author of “The Importance of Human Leadership with Integrity in a Highly Regulated and Tech-Reliant Corporate Environment” as published by Harvard Business Law Review and “ESG Colour-Washing: Combating Modern-Day Corporate Hypocrisy” edited by Cambridge University Press. He is a highly sought-after keynote speaker at leading international conferences, including at the International Bar Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel, The Lawyer, the Academy of European Law and Fordham Law School in New York City as well as at The Legal 500’s very own global conferences. Spitzer is a champion for diversity, and currently leading an all-female legal team at Banco Santander in Frankfurt, including Cristina Reparaz Gravalos from Spain who also regularly works on important Latam projects. In a nutshell, he is an extremely well-versed and very charismatic head of legal, who has mastered the tension between being a pro-active business partner and a corporate guardian focusing at all times on compliance with laws, ethics and values.