Global Games Summit 2023 Speakers

Adj. Prof. Richard L. Brand

Rich is an Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, where he teaches a course on sports law transactions. He previously taught at Stanford Law School and Georgetown Law. Rich regularly guest lectures at prominent undergraduate and graduate Sports Administration programs.

Richard Brand is also the lead attorney in connection with the largest, most complex, and most prominent transactions in the United States for many years. His sports practice encompasses a number of transactional areas, including eSports, naming rights transactions and media rights agreements. Rich has represented an A-list of professional sports franchises in all the major leagues, owners of sports and entertainment facilities, and sponsors and service content providers. Best Lawyers has also recognized Rich as a “Lawyer of the Year” for his high-profile sports work. Chambers USA notes, “he is highly regarded for his expertise in representing both sellers and purchasers of sports teams,” and he is “really practical and resourceful,” according to client testimony. Legal 500 client sources say he is “one of the very best transactional sports lawyers in the country. Rich serves on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Sports Council, a prestigious group made of individuals and corporate members of the sports business community.

Dr. Pietro Graf Fringuelli

Pietro Graf Fringuelli is the Chairman of the Executive Board of the World ESports Association (WESA), partner at CMS and global Co-Head of the CMS Technology, Media and Communications sector group. In this role, he leads a team of over 650 lawyers. Described as "the most innovative and strategically thinking expert on the market" in the media sector (Client quote, The Legal 500, 2022), Pietro is particularly experienced in the structuring of digital business models, broadcasting law and online advertising issues for e-commerce and digital businesses. Pietro and his team have won several awards for their capabilities in the field of media, including a 2017 FT Innovative Lawyer award for their work advising on the establishment of WESA. In 2023, he was named as Lawyer of the year by Handelsblatt for media law. 

María González Gordon

María González is the global Co-Head of CMS Digital Business Group. She specialises in advising domestic and international companies on intellectual property, industrial property, copyright and technology, particularly in litigation and dispute resolution.

Moreover, she is well versed in the drafting, negotiation and termination of a wide range of IP/IT agreements (licences, trademarks, designs, software, outsourcing, distribution agreements, transfers, assignments, etc.), not to mention her expertise in advising on technology, digital transformation and data analytics in sectors such as insurtech, fintech, energy, health and wellbeing and real estate, among others.

She is also an authorised representative before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). Additionally, she has been recognised in the field of IP by leading and most prestigious legal directories Chambers & Partners, Legal 500 and Who's Who Legal.

Bernd Gottsmann

Bernd Gottsmann is a Gaming and Esports Industry veteran with 18+ years of experience focused on Event & Tournament operations, Business Development, Strategic Initiatives and People Management. He recently joined EFG ESL FACEIT Group as VP for Publisher Operations, leading a team of publisher operations experts at EFG, the world's largest Esports company.

Gottsmann previously held Lead and Senior Manager positions at Tencent Games/IEG Global as well as Activision Blizzard EMEA, with a combined 12+ years of experience focused on Esports Operations, Partnership Management and Strategic Initiatives. He built and managed Esports teams which supported the success and ran Esports for AAA gaming titles such as PUBG MOBILE, Arena of Valor, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch.

Prof. Dr. Christian-Henner Hentsch, M.A., LL.M.  

Christian-Henner Hentsch is Director Legal and Regulatory Affairs for game - Association of the German Games Industry and is responsible for all legal issues within the association as well as for legal policy issues. He is also Managing Director of VHG - Verwertungsgesellschaft für die Hersteller von Games mbH and Professor for Copyright and Media Law at Kölner Forschungsstelle Medienrecht at the Technical University of Cologne. He is co-editor of the journal Multimedia und Recht (MMR), editor of the Handbuch Games und Recht (Handbook on Games and Law) and one of the four authors of a commentary on Copyright Law, as well as co-author of many other established commentaries and handbooks on copyright and media law.

Previously, he represented the interests of television and radio broadcasters as well as newspaper and magazine publishers for the collecting society VG Media as head of politics and worked as a research assistant in the German Bundestag. He studied law and history with a double degree in Freiburg and Bonn and completed his legal traineeship in Düsseldorf, Washington DC, Frankfurt and Berlin.

Jens Hilgers

Jens Hilgers (born 1975) is a German entrepreneur who works in the esports industry. He was the founding CEO of the esports production company Electronic Sports League (ESL), and is a co-founder and the CEO of Bayes (formerly Dojo Madness), an esports data company based in Berlin. In 2014, he co-founded G2 Esports together with Carlos "Ocelot" Rodriguez, and currently serves as its chairman. He is also the founding general partner of BITKRAFT Ventures, a global early and mid-stage investment platform for gaming, esports, and a new technology named Web3. He has been credited as an early pioneer of the esports industry.

Hans Jagnow

Hans Jagnow joined the ESL Pro League (EPL) in 2020 as Vice President, managing the partnership operations between ESL and 15 of the world’s best CS:GO esports teams. Before his position at ESL Pro League, he was working as an political advisor for digital policies at the Berlin State Parliament for over 7 years; he also served as the first president of Germany’s national esports federation ESBD from 2017 to 2020 and Esports Europe in 2020. Hans studied Legal Studies the Free University of Berlin, including an internship stay in Washington D.C, and graduated in 2017.

Faiz Kabir 

Faiz Kabir is the Integrity Sales & Partnerships Director at Sportradar, based in London. Prior to Sportradar, he worked for many international betting operators as a senior odds compiler and trading manager and has a total of 20 years’ experience in betting, gaming and integrity. He has worked for the Integrity Services division within Sportradar for ten years now, the first eight years of which were spend running the daily anti-match-fixing operation, helping the team grown to 6 international locations, and with over 100 dedicated staff members. The last two years he spent working in a business development capacity, growing the footprint of the business internationally.

Dr Yin Harn Lee

Dr Yin Harn Lee is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bristol Law School.

Yin Harn’s research focuses on copyright law and video games. Her most recent projects deal with the status of videogame modifications under copyright law and the challenges presented by copyright law for the preservation of videogames by cultural heritage institutions. She also has an interest in the historical and doctrinal aspects of copyright law. She is an editor of the Interactive Entertainment Law Review, published by Edward Elgar.

Dr. Andreas Peschel-Mehner

Dr. Andreas Peschel-Mehner has provided legal counsel to all forms of digital business since the inception of the world wide web. His advisory spans start-ups, multi-channel offerings and international internet companies and focuses on all applicable legal fields with a particular emphasis on data protection and usage, terms and conditions, consumer protection, compliance, advertising, gaming and competition law, among numerous others. Dr. Andreas Peschel-Mehner also commands broad expertise in media and entertainment law, in particular issues touching on the film and television industry and those related to media production finance and the global exploitation thereof, with digital media advisory on changes to utilization models, revenue streams and video on demand platforms composing a significant part of his counsel.

His advisory expertise is augmented by decades of involvement with and counsel of national and international computer game publishers and studios and during the last five years for and in the Esport Eco-system. Since 1996, he works at SKW Schwarz.

Alexander Müller

Alexander T. Müller was born in 1976 in Marburg an der Lahn. The graduate economist pursued the big dream of his own company parallel to his studies and founded the first company in Esports at the end of the 1990s and decided to dedicate his career fully to SK Gaming a few years later. In 2000, he founded the Electronic Sports League (ESL) as one of the five shareholders in 2000. Müller took over as sole managing director at SK Gaming in 2006, having previously held the role together with Ralf Reichert and Andreas Thorstensson.

Jörg Nothdurft

Jörg Nothdurft is the Director of Litigation and Law at the German Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office). He started his career at the University of Cologne in 1998 as a Junior Researcher at the Institute of Labour- and Business Law and switched to the Bundeskartellamt in 1999, where he became a Junior Case Handler. in 2004 he was appointed as Head of Litigation and Legal, in 2008 to Chairman of the 5^th Decision Division. Since 2010, he holds his current position. Additionally, he’s a lecturer at the Federal University for Administrative Sciences in Speyer, Germany, since 2012.

Univ.-Prof. Dr. iur. Markus Ogorek, LL.M.

Markus Ogorek was awarded his habilitation at the University of Cologne in 2012 and became a chair representative at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. At the same time, he was a visiting professor at Nanjing University. In 2013, EBS University appointed Markus Ogorek to a chair in administrative law. In summer 2014, he became Dean of the Faculty of Law, and in 2016 the Senate elected him University President. In spring 2020, Markus Ogorek moved from the EBS top position back to the University of Cologne as Director in charge of the Institute for Public Law and Administrative Theory. 

Markus Ogorek's research focuses on administrative, constitutional and constitutional law, and he is currently working on public security law and the constitutional law of the federal states. He also works on European, social and ecclesiastical law as well as administrative theory.

Markus Ogorek's teaching formats have received several awards, most recently the teaching prize of the Faculty of Law at the University of Cologne (2023). In addition, he is the editor of public law publications and advises the press/media, in the parliamentary-political arena and in selected constitutional and administrative court disputes.

Prof. Dr. Jan F. Orth LL.M.

Prof. Dr. Jan F. Orth LL.M. (UT) is a presiding judge at the Regional Court of Cologne, where he presides over a chamber of the criminal division. He is the court's press spokesman. At the University of Cologne, he is a professor and managing director of the Research Center for Sports Law. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal for Sports and Law (SpuRt) and editor and co-author of numerous books on sports law. In an honorary capacity, he is a member of the Federal Court of the German Football Association (DFB), among others, and is also a member of the Disciplinary Commission of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). At the DIS Court of Arbitration for Sport he is active as an arbitrator, also for doping proceedings.

Dr Tobias Schmid

Dr Tobias Schmid is the Director of the Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia. Besides that, he is also elected as the European Affairs Commissioner of the Conference of Directors of the German Media Authorities (DLM). Moreover, Tobias Schmid is Chairman of the Federal Media Committee of the German Music Council. Since 1st April 2021, he is also a Member of the Expert Committee for Communication and Information of the German UNESCO-Commission.

Dr. Christian Schmitz 

Dr. Christian Schmitz is a specialist in criminal law and a partner at Verte Law, one of the most renowned criminal law firms in Europe. He represents and advises companies in a wide range of complex white-collar criminal proceedings and compliance investigations. One focus of his work is advising a variety of associations. This includes not only sports associations, but also e-sports organizations. Among his clients is the ESL Pro League. Since 2016, Dr. Schmitz has been teaching criminal compliance, with a focus on internal investigations, whistleblower systems and the prevention of corruption and money laundering, in the master's program of the RFH - University of Applied Sciences, Cologne.

Prof. Ellen Zavian

Ellen M. Zavian is Professor at George Washington University, Washington D.C.. She became the first female attorney/agent in the NFL soon after her graduation. She has represented the US Women’s Soccer and Softball gold medalists and extreme athletes, collectively, and held the title of Commissioner for the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (NCAA).).

Ms. Zavian served as coordinator for the NFLPA’s Native American project, a nationally recognized journalist, and a court expert in licensing/sports agreements. She also created the United Breakin Association, a global association for competitive break dancers and was appointed to a task force to get break dancing in the Olympics (Youth Olympics 2018 and Olympics 2024).

She has served on many sports-related committees, including the DC Bar’s Arts, Entertainment, Media, and Sports Section, and co-created the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Sports & Entertainment Committee. She teaches sports law, negotiations, leadership, and entrepreneurship at the George Washington University School of Business and George Washington Law School (Moot Court Coach), while serving as general counsel at USA Lacrosse. Her Board/Committee positions include FIFA Pro Bono Counsel, FIFPRO DEI Commitee, SafeSport International Board, and much more.

David Zeffman

David Zeffman has been one of the leading lawyers in the UK media sector for over 30 years and has extensive experience providing strategic, commercial and regulatory advice to clients in the gambling, sport and television sectors. He has been involved in many of the major transactions that have taken place in these sectors, including the launch of several television channels and the sale of media rights to some of the world's biggest sporting competitions.