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Timo Matthias Spitzer

 

Position

Head of Legal Corporate and Investment Banking Germany, Austria, Switzerland & Nordic Countries at Banco Santander, S.A.

Special interests

Timo Matthias Spitzer manages legal aspects of cross-border transactions relating to corporate and investment banking, syndicated lending and global transaction banking (including trade, export and supply chain finance).

Vita

Mr. Spitzer is an internationally experienced and commercially minded general counsel. He worked at three globally active banks and three leading international law firms. Mr. Spitzer is dually qualified as Rechtsanwalt (Germany) and Solicitor (England & Wales), with a First Class Honors LL.M. in International Economic Law. He is a native German, and is fluent in English, French, Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish.

Apart from his work at Santander and the ILF, where he also serves on a board, Mr. Spitzer is Chairman of The Legal 500 General Counsel Powerlist Germany Advisory Board as well as Advisory Board Member of the German Institute for Legal Departments and Corporate Lawyers (diruj) and Business Law Magazine (F.A.Z. Business Media). He is a regular speaker at renowned international conferences and events. Mr. Spitzer lectured repeatedly at Harvard Law School, and his award-winning lecture on international sanction provisions is also part of his ILF course program.

His professional excellence was repeatedly recognized by his inclusion in The Legal 500 General Counsel Powerlist. In 2019, Mr. Spitzer won both the Global Counsel Award and the European Counsel Award, each for General Commercial Individual of the Year, hosted by the Association of Corporate Counsel and Lexology, which recognized top in-house lawyers based on over 4,000 global nominations and peer feedback.

His publications include “The Importance of Human Leadership with Integrity in a Highly Regulated and Tech-Reliant Corporate Environment” as published by Harvard Business Law Review in February 2020.

Publications

  • Why Leadership with Integrity is Crucial to Achieving Sustainable Business Practices for Corporations: How the In-House Legal Function May Serve as a Driving Factor in Promoting Sustainable Value, International In-house Counsel Journal, Vol.14, No. 55, Spring 2021, 1 (co-author Klemen Kreca)
  • The Importance of Human Leadership with Integrity in a Highly Regulated and Tech-Reliant Corporate Environment, Harvard Business Law Review, 2020
  • Corporate Counsel as Moral Compass (“Unternehmensjuristen als moralischer Kompass“), Unternehmensjurist, 2020
  • Global Players Between Hammer And Anvil, The US-EU Sanctions Dilemma, Digitorney, 2018
  • The 'capital-marketisation' of export finance, Financier worldwide, 2013
  • Governance International Australia (together with Stephen Hodgson and Arthur Davis), 2011
  • Governance International Poland (together with, inter alios, Katarzyna Koston Cikulin), 2011

Course(s)

International Economic Law (Trade and Export Finance)