Speakers at our Annual Conference

Every year, Markus Exler invites people to a cross-border dialogue with interesting people. When he is not lecturing at the institute in Kufstein or abroad as a visiting professor, he is a management consultant, holds advisory board positions in medium-sized companies and does not view the restructuring of companies as a flaw or a consequence of a crisis, but rather as part of normal corporate development. Markus is often booked as a speaker at conferences and corporate events. He believes that thinking about restructuring should be a constant task for every manager. He is at home in Nuremberg and Kufstein.

Johannes Gehringer is the Managing Director of Holzwerkstatt Gehringer GmbH in Lichtenfels. For over a decade, he and his brother Matthias have been at the helm of the family business, which boasts a tradition of craftsmanship spanning more than 360 years. Both brothers are master craftsmen dedicated to creating ecological and timeless furniture. They skillfully blend traditional techniques with cutting-edge technology to produce exclusive solid wood furniture and premium home accessories.

Petra Heidenfelder has been a partner since 2008 and has more than 25 years of experience in the insolvency business. She has been involved in major proceedings such as Philipp Holzmann AG, Walter Bau AG, Schlecker and Alpine Deutschland GmbH. She also knows banking life ‘from the inside’ from her work as a branch manager and reorganisation consultant at several large German banks. She has also been advising debtors and creditors for several years. She can draw on a broad network in the reorganisation sector through various association memberships. Petra loves the practical relevance and is always solution-orientated for her clients. Due to her work as a mediator and yoga teacher, she is always able to keep calm even in conflict-laden and stressful situations.

Britta Hübner is a restructuring expert who has gained her experience in almost 20 years as a CRO and in an advisory role in international corporations. She has successfully carried out restructurings both in the course of classic continuations and in the context of insolvencies. Britta has also been supporting companies as a member of supervisory and advisory boards for more than 10 years.

Alexander Jaroschinsky is a partner at EY-Parthenon in the area of turnaround and restructuring and is the restructuring office head in Stuttgart. He specializes in complex holistic transformation and restructuring cases in the national and international automotive industry, particularly in the automotive supplier industry. He began his consulting career at FTI-Andersch.

Lutz Jäde is a partner at Oliver Wyman in Munich. He is the head of the Restructuring Practice in Europe and advises companies from various industries on restructuring, strategic transformation and performance improvement. Lutz began his consulting career at Roland Berger and then worked in Deloitte's Strategy & Operations Practice. He holds a diploma and doctorate in Theoretical Physics from the University of Hamburg.

Felix Lee is a business journalist at Süddeutsche Zeitung Dossier and a long-standing China correspondent for numerous German-language media outlets. His book “China, mein Vater und ich” (China, My Father and I) became a Spiegel bestseller and won the German Business Book Award in 2023. He is also co-author of the book “China. Auswege aus einem Dilemma” (China: Ways Out of a Dilemma, 2024), both published by Ch.Links.

Antje Mertig has more than 30 years of experience in the banking and real estate sectors. A native of Leipzig, she began her career with a banking apprenticeship during the transformative years of the 1990s and soon specialized in the financing, management, and restructuring of large-scale real estate exposures. After positions in commercial real estate financing, she moved into credit restructuring in 2004. In senior roles, she managed complex loan portfolios with volumes of up to €6 billion, particularly in the context of distressed assets and CMBS structures. Today, through her company, she advises investors and financiers on challenging real estate transactions and crisis situations—always with a focus on sustainable use concepts and ESG-related developments. Antje Mertig is a qualified banker, holds a degree in banking management (BA), and serves as a member of the German Advisory Board of RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors), an international professional body headquartered in London that sets global standards for the real estate and construction industries and related fields.

Andrea Metz has more than 20 years of experience as an expert in corporate law and M&A as well as restructuring and insolvency. She began her career in 1996 as a legal advisor to the Hamburg-based musical group Stella AG. Following a period abroad in New York at the International Tax Desk of Ernst & Young, she worked for many years as a lawyer/partner at Luther and most recently at Buse. Andrea holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the London School of Economics. She regularly speaks at specialist events and takes part in panels, often as a moderator. She lives in Frankfurt, enjoys going to the theatre and travelling to faraway countries on holiday.

Johannes Pracher heads Startrampe, the start-up hub of Sparkasse Oberösterreich. For over 10 years, he has been supporting and advising founders on their path to self-employment. Prior to that, he worked at Johannes Kepler University and in the political arena. He passes on his knowledge and experience as a lecturer at several universities of applied sciences. He is the host of #glaubandich, a business podcast that was named Austria's best corporate and business podcast by Hitradio Ö3 in 2025 and received the Podcast Award.

Annabell Pehlivan is the owner of the management consultancy Turnaround Innovation in Vienna, specializing in innovation and business model development. She supports companies in establishing new business models as additional sources of income or in navigating special business situations. Previously, she served as Managing Director of Grantiro Initiative GmbH. Most recently, she led the establishment of the Innovation Hub Vorarlberg at the Chamber of Commerce and lectures at the Institute for Cross-Border Restructuring at the University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Tirol.

Ulla Reisch has been practicing as an attorney-at-law and insolvency administrator since 1997, initially in Vienna and now also in Lower Austria and Styria. Since 2000, she has been a partner at Urbanek Lind Schmied Reisch Rechtsanwälte OG, headquartered in Vienna with branch offices in St. Pölten and Krems. Her practice focuses on restructuring and insolvency law, including international insolvency law. Ulla Reisch is appointed by the court as an insolvency administrator and also represents debtors in both out-of-court restructurings and judicial insolvency proceedings.

Eva Ringelspacher specializes in restructuring and financing, with a focus on debt advisory. She advises companies on financial restructuring and supports them in stakeholder communication. Before joining W&P, she worked as a lawyer, spent twenty years as a director in the restructuring division of a major bank, and gained seven years of experience in restructuring consulting. Since 2018, she has served on the extended board of TMA Germany, and in 2024 she was appointed Vice President of TMA Global International Relations as well as a member of the Executive Board of TMA Global.

Gabriele Schiemer has been working in the restructuring sector for 28 years in various credit institutions in Austria and is currently the Head of Risk Management at Sparkasse Niederösterreich Mitte-West AG. She is a co-author of the "Principles for Restructuring in Austria." Gabi is an expert in the Austrian and German banking scene, and in our panel, we will ask her for her current assessment of credit institutions, particularly in the automotive and mechanical engineering sectors.

Thomas Schmid began his professional career in consulting with a focus on big data before moving into mechanical engineering as an entrepreneur in 2010. Since then, he has been consistently driving forward the transformation of his company from a traditional plant manufacturer to a sustainable solution provider with a clear focus on digitalization and the use of AI. He has international experience from China, where he lived before starting his career and has been running his own subsidiary since 2015.