Members

Adrian-Stefan Sacalschi is the Managing Director of MBH Bank – Frankfurt Branch, previously at Takarek Bank and FHB Mortgage Bank.
He studied Finance and Law in Romania an finished his studies with a thesis on Pfandbriefe at the University of Konstanz.
He has over 18 years of experience in mortgage banking. He has experience in residential mortgage lending, cross-border commercial real estate projects, project management, development of refinancing systems for mortgage banking, digital transformation.
At vdp he is member in the working groups Covered Bond Legislation and Security Rights over Real Property.
He is actively engaged in the development of covered bond markets in the CEE region, especially in Romania, where he was involved also in drafting frameworks for covered bonds. He is also contributor in the ECBC Covered Bond Fact Book.

Agustin Martin is the head of European credit research for BBVA, based in London. Agustín joined BBVA in October 2005, after the completion of his master’s degree in electrical engineering and he worked previously in the Spanish utilities sector. In BBVA he has had different roles within the European credit research & Stratey team, including as a research analyst in structured credit, investment-grade industrial corporates and since 2010, he has headed the financials, covered bonds, SSAs and ESG research.
In the covered bonds space he is one of the most highly regarded analysts within the Southern European space, which includes, among others, the Spanish cedulas. He is a frequent panelist and collaborator with Bloomberg, AFME, Global Capital, IFLR and the specialized media in areas such as covered bonds, ESG research and Iberian SSAs. He holds a degree in electrical engineering by the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas in 2001 and a MsC in advanced econometrics and statistics applied to electrical engineering in 2004 from the same university.

Alexandra Schadow is head of corporates, financials, covered bonds and agencies research at LBBW. Her previous professional experience includes assignments as senior equity analyst for utilities, construction, renewables and engineering, head of industrials & automotive equity research as well as head of covered bonds and financials research. Before her current role in research, Alexandra joined the controlling department of LBBW. She received an Economic Degree from the University of Hohenheim (Accounting and Financing) and the Certificate of a public accountant (CPA) in Kentucky, USA.

András Botos is a bank management and mortgage covered bonds specialist, holding various positions in commercial and mortgage banks in Hungary. Previously Deputy-CEO and CFO of Erste Mortgage Bank, currently Head of Legal at MFB Development Bank, the state owned development bank in Hungary.

Bernd Volk is responsible for European Covered Bond and SSA research at Deutsche Bank. Bernd has over 25 years of experience in the financial industry. In 1997, he started as an analyst for Pfandbriefe at DZ Bank. From 2000 to 2004, Bernd worked at Deka Investment as a fund manager and analyst for banks and financials. From 2005 to 2006, he worked at Unicredit Germany as covered bond analyst.
Bernd graduated from the University of Freiburg with a degree in law and a degree in economics. From 1995 to 1997, Bernd served as an assistant professor in economics at the University of Freiburg. Bernd is a CFA charterholder and represents DB at the ECBC.

Cristina Costa is a Director and research analyst based in Paris, France covering Covered Bonds & SSA Research. She has over 15 years’ experience as a sell-side analyst, having worked previously at Societe Generale and Natixis. Prior to working as a sell-side analyst, she worked for four years at the European Covered Bond Council. She is business fluent in 5 languages, earning her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and MBA from Bocconi University.

More than thirty years experience in Austrian banking law as in-house-lawyer, dealing also with financing of subsidised housing and tourist infrastructure.
Some publications concerning Austrian covered bond law.
Mr. Uitz contributed to the consultations of the Austrian Pfandbriefgesetz.
Working a long time for Hypo Salzburg and now, after merge, for Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich AG, on different scopes, eg. legal support of covered bond team.

Otmar M. Stoecker, PhD, is Managing Director and Head of Department
“Cover Assets” in the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks in Berlin. He is
responsible for German Pfandbrief law, public finance, comparison of
covered bond legislation and mortgage finance in Europe, US, Canada and
Japan. He is chairing the expert group "Round Table on Security Rights over
Real Property in Europe".
Furthermore he initiated and chairs the research group, called "Round Table
Covered Bond Legislation". He has been working for the Association since
1989 in several senior positions. Additionally, he has advised parliaments,
ministries, banking supervision authorities and banks in central and eastern
European countries in transition on covered bonds, mortgage and real estate
finance, mortgage law and land register law.
He has authored numerous publications on national and international
covered bond and mortgage finance issues. He holds a law degree and PhD
from the University of Wuerzburg.

Dr. Robert Horat holds a Master's degree in Business Administration with focus on Banking and Finance from the University of Zurich. He wrote his doctoral thesis at the Swiss Banking Institute of the University of Zurich on the Swiss Pfandbrief® as a refinancing instrument.
He worked for several years in various functions for a Swiss regional bank before switching to the Pfandbriefbank schweizerischer Hypothekarinstitute AG at the beginning of 2014.

Dr. Tim Lassen is working at the vdp office in the department Cover Assets (Pfandbrief Act, mortgages, ships and aircraft, cover assets, public finance, legal issues) since April 2024, since January 2024 as deputy department head.
Prior to this, Tim Lassen worked as a lawyer in the office of the Association of German Mortgage Banks (Berlin, since 2005 Association of German Pfandbrief Banks, vdp) from March 1998 to September 2005.
In October 2005, he joined Eurohypo AG (Eschborn, since 2012 "Hypothekenbank Frankfurt") in the "Corporate and Investment Banking International - CEE" division, since 2007 in the representative office in Moscow.
From February 2014 to April 2023, Tim Lassen worked for an international financial and industrial group in various management positions in the areas of International Legal Affairs, Commercial Real Estate Management and Credit Finance.
He is the author of numerous publications on mortgage banking and covered bond law in Europe.

Filipe Santos Barata Of Counsel of Banking and Finance and Capital Markets and Head of Insurance at Gómez-Acebo & Pombo in Portugal. He holds a Law degree and a post-graduation in Securities and Insurance Law from Universidade de Lisboa and a post-graduation in Business Law from Universidade Católica Portuguesa. He holds a Master in Legal Science (Banking Law - "The Covered Bonds ") from Universidade de Lisboa. Currently he is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Salamanca. Author and co-author in several specialised legal publications, he is a regular speaker at various forums in the field of Banking and Financial law. Since 2012 Filipe is an Invited Lecturer at ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics and Management.

Florian Eichert has been heading Covered Bond & SSA Research at Crédit Agricole CIB since 2010. After 7 years in London, he relocated back to Frankfurt in 2017. Prior to his current job, he spent 6 years at LBBW as a covered bond analyst. Florian has been a member of the steering committee of the European Covered Bond Council since 2015 and he served as chairman of the data and statistics working group for 8 years until 2019.

Frederik Kunze has been with NORD/LB since 2009. As a covered bond analyst in the Covered Bond & SSA Research team, he has been preparing commentaries and trading strategies on the covered bond market since 2018 and deals with the regulatory assessment of covered bonds and the underlying laws.
Previously, Frederik Kunze worked as an economist in Research and as a Senior Credit Portfolio Manager in Credit Risk Control at NORD/LB. He completed his doctorate at the Georg-August University in Göttingen (Germany) on financial market crises and capital market forecasting.

Since 2013 responsible for legal affairs in mBank Hipoteczny SA (Head of Legal Affairs) and for legal aspects in many innovative projects for mortgage bank in mBank Group (Commerzbank Group). Graduated from the law faculty, in 2005 completed her PhD in law with doctors dissertation concerning mortgage reform and refinancing of mortgages. Lecturer in Legal Sciences Institute of Polish Academy of Science in 2008-2011 doing research in the field of European contract law. Completed European Banking Law and Finances and Capital Market postgraduate studies. Involved in legislation consultation process in the field of land registry, mortgages and covered bond, participating in mortgage law reform debate, as a conference speaker, industry representative and author of articles. In 2006 - 2009 Polish delegate to Legal Affairs Committee at the European Mortgage Federation. From 2020 member of vdp Roundtable on Covered Bond Legislation and panelist of Central European Covered Bond Conferences.

Mr. Deiss works in the Asset-Liability-Management Department of Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark AG (Styria/Austria) and is responsible for the strategic Cover-Pool- and Collateral-Allocation-Management as well as co-responsible for the bank’s funding activities.
In this role he represents his employer in various national and international communities of interest (i.e. Austrian Pfandbriefforum, WKÖ, vdp, ECBC) and respective working groups.
Mr. Deiss actively contributed to the consultations of both the European Covered Bond Direction and the Austrian Pfandbriefgesetz. His following activities of implementing the Austrian Pfandbriefgesetz culminated in the issuance of the very first Austrian “Pfandbrief” (European Covered Bond (Premium)) under the new law in July 2022 by Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark AG.
In 2023 Mr. Deiss looks back on 20 years of experience in Covered Bond Markets working in two jurisdictions (Germany 2003 – 2009, Austria since 2010) and building up Cover Pools from scratch two times; in Austria also including the pooling of assets from different credit institutions.

Johannes Rudolph has more than 20 years of professional experience with covered bonds. He works as treasury manager for the public-sector health insurer AOK PLUS, based in Leipzig, Germany. The company invests its liquidity reserves partly in covered bonds. Before, he managed liquidity portfolios for ING Bank’s group treasury in Amsterdam (2013-2019) and was bond analyst at HSBC Trinkaus (2000-2013). Johannes studied economics and holds a “Diplom-Volkswirt” degree from the University of Heidelberg.

Kim Laustsen is Head of Regulatory Affairs at Nykredit in Copenhagen. Nykredit is the largest Danish provider of mortgage lending and issuer of Danish covered bonds, and Kim has since 2001 worked with different aspects of financial risk management, funding of mortgage lending and financial regulation – including international capital and liquidity requirements, Danish and European covered bonds regulation, crisis management regulation and issues related to sustainable finance.
Kim holds a degree of M.Sc. in Business Administration and Management Science from Copenhagen Business School.

Konrad Szymczyk is a graduate of the Warsaw School of Economics (Quantitative Methods in Economics and Information Systems) and the University of Warsaw (Law). He has held positions related to asset and liability management in various institutions in the investment fund and banking sectors since 2014. He has been working in the Treasury department of mBank Hipoteczny since 2021.

Kristian Ingemann Petersen is First Vice President at Nykredit Realkredit A/S in Copenhagen and had worked with security rights, mortgage lending and covered bonds since 2006. He is responsible for a legal department servicing the Nykredit Group on legal issues in relation to commercial lending, security rights, covered bond issuance and capital regulatory affairs. He is also member of the working group Roundtable Security Rights.

Markus is a capital markets lawyer with a special focus on structured finance transactions and financial regulations. He has broad experience with different types of DCM transactions, including covered bonds and securitisation, as well as derivatives documentation (ISDA), receivables financing arrangements and general corporate finance work. He also advises clients on ESG-related capital market questions (e.g. green and sustainable bond issues) and has authored the Norwegian chapters for leading publications on fintech and Blockchain legislation. Markus is an expert on Norwegian covered bonds legislation and regularly acts for several of Norway’s largest covered bond issuers, as well as for their parent banks in relation to their funding and capital requirements. Markus is listed as a Rising Star Partner within Debt Capital Markets (Norway) by IFLR 1000 and as a key lawyer within banking and finance (Norway) by Legal 500

Maureen Schuller is Head of Financials Sector Strategy at ING. Her research focus is dedicated to covered bonds and sustainability topics impacting banks. Maureen graduated in 1998 in monetary economics at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands). She completed the one year postgraduate financial and economic policy (BoFEB) programme (Erasmus University Rotterdam/Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs), before joining ING in 1999. Maureen is heading ING’s financial research team since 2015 and has been a member of the vdp Roundtable Covered Bond Legislation (RT CBL) since 2019.

Nicoleta Ruxandescu, CFA is director of the Investment Banking & Capital Markets Unit of Alpha Bank Romania. She coordinates equity & debt financing and other corporate finance mandates on behalf of the clients and the bank. Nicoleta was involved in the establishment of the covered bond program of Alpha Bank Romania, the first and only in Romania, and is also in charge with the ongoing management of the program.
Before joining Alpha Bank Group, Nicoleta held various positions at local financial institutions, i.e. financial investment services firms, the Romanian Financial Supervisory Authority, Romanian Investors’ Compensation Fund.

Oscar Meester is heading the Asset Based Funding department within the ALMT department of BNP Paribas Fortis. This department uses internal loan portfolios for liquidity management purposes, e.g. using securitisation and covered bonds. He participated in the setting up of the Belgian covered bond legislation and the adjustments in this legislation after the Covered Bond Directive.

Sascha Kullig was appointed as a Member of the Management Board of the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (vdp) of Juli 1, 2020.
Kullig has been Department Head of the vdp's business segment Pfandbrief, Capital Markets and Investor Relations since the end of 2003, and has coordinated the Association's Sustainable Finance activities since 2018. As a Member of the Board of Directors, the economist is additionally responsible for coordinationg both the Valuation business segment and Real Estate Market and Domestic Real Estate Finance.
After graduating from Göttingen University, he began as a financial market analyst at Bridge/Fokus Deutschland before moving, in 2001, to the Börsen-Zeitung where he worked in the newspaper's Capital Markets Department.

Jussi Harju, CFA, is a Director with Citi Research covering supranationals, sub-sovereigns and agencies and also covered bonds. He joined the firm in 2021 and has over 10 years of experience on the sell side, having worked previously at similar role at Barclays. Prior to this, he also worked for Standard & Poor’s in London focusing on securitization and covered bonds between 2006 and 2011.

Kaire Husu is working with funding programs and securitizations in Luminor Bank’s Treasury based in Estonia. She has played a key role in launching the EMTN and covered bond program for Luminor Bank and issuing first covered bonds from Baltics. She is coordinating the covered bond working group in the Estonian Banking Association and she has also worked with investors and credit rating agencies’ relations. She has more than 20 years of (international) experience in the financial industry, which mainly focused on the Risk management and the Treasury area. Kaire holds a master’s degree in Economic Sciences.

Anneliis Räpo is supporting Estonian based Treasury Department within Finance Division in Luminor Bank AS. She is the member of Estonian Bar Association since 2015 and has more than 12 years of experience in legal field. Anneliis is providing daily legal support to Treasury, covering also Luminor’s EMTN Programme, bonds issuances, tenders. She has been working in Luminor for 2 years now.

Worked as financial analyst in bank for twenty years. Twelve years as adviser in the SBA with focus on covered bonds. BSc in economics.

Previous experience from the Swedish Ministry of Finance and as associate judge. LL.M. and BSc in business and economics.

Joost Beaumont is the Head of Bank Research with lead responsibility for covered bonds and financials, focussing on the euro-denominated market and the Dutch market in particular. He has been part of Group Economics at ABN AMRO since 2010. He is a member of the Financial Markets Research team. He is also the Chairman of the Statistics & Data Working Group of the European Covered Bond Council. Previously, Joost worked as a senior European Economist, focusing on the UK and French economies, while having extensive expertise in the field of the European debt crisis as well. He also worked in the International Economic Research team of Fortis Global Markets, while he spent nearly seven years as a policy advisor at the central bank of the Netherlands Antilles. Joost studied macroeconomics at the University of Amsterdam from 1993 to 1998.

Karsten Rühlmann began his professional career at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg in 2004. After completing his dual studies in 2007, he worked for 4 ½ years as an investment specialist in Wealth Management at LBBW's subsidiary BW-Bank. Since April 2012, he has been working at LBBW Research on the analysis of covered bonds and Pfandbriefe. In addition to the individual evaluation of covered bond programs, his focus is also on the analysis of the market and regulatory developments. As a senior investment analyst, he is also responsible for the credit assessment of mortgage banks and special credit institutions in Germany.