About

Oliver Kirchner joined US multinational software company Citrix, in 2012 as legal director in its EMEA headquarters in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. He was promoted to senior director associate general counsel in August 2012 where he heads the EMEA legal team of seven lawyers, with three in Switzerland, three in the UK and one in France. The Citrix EMEA legal team is responsible for all legal matters across Europe, Middle East, Africa in 20+ countries, covering matters that cover contracts with channel partners and customers, data protection law, corporate law, compliance and litigations. Attributing the successful management of these matters in part to his team, Kirchner says, ‘My biggest achievement is having hired a great team of brilliant, hard-working and business-minded lawyers, and managing them in a way that they perform at the highest standards’. Upon joining Kirchner admits the legal department had a reputation of being a ‘policeman’ for internal policies and processes. Thanks to Kirchner, this has changed to the complete opposite, the legal department is now known as an extremely business-minded function, which is highly appreciated and seen as an integral part of the overall organisation. ‘The key to this success was to make sure the legal team is well integrated into the business, participating in all management meetings, regular alignment with business leaders, being available and approachable with the teams on the ground’, says Kirchner. Prior to this role he studied law in Germany, where he was active in politics during that time, working for a member of parliament and was elected as a member of the City Council in his home town Stuttgart from 1999 to 2004. From 2002 to 2008, he served as the contract manager and senior negotiator attorney for IBM, where he negotiated IT outsourcing agreements for seven years across Europe. He went on to join Nokia Siemens Networks, today Nokia Networks, in a global role working in Munich, Dallas, and for two years in Dubai, supporting major managed services transactions and the global leadership team of the maintenance business.