Building Resilience for Uncertain Tomorrows.
The Story
Once, the business landscape was predictable. Companies navigated by familiar rules. Then, the foundation shifted…
Law was weaponized. AI disrupted operations. Geopolitical and geoeconomic tensions shattered global stability. The old maps and checklists no longer apply. In this new reality, organizations face a binary choice: cling to obsolete strategies or build radical resilience.
This is the story of a new kind of business. One that does not just weather the storm but navigates it with precision. It understands that uncertainty is not an obstacle, but a constant.
By trading rigid planning for strategic adaptability, these organizations don’t just survive the chaos. They seize the opportunities within it.
The Need
The weaponization of law, the rise of AI, and escalating geoeconomic tensions have created a new threat landscape. Maintaining a comprehensive overview is increasingly challenging, planning is difficult, and future outcomes are unpredictable. Organizations need to adapt and build resilience to ensure survival and future success. They demand clear guidance. They require expert support. A partner.
The Partner
That’s where I come in. In an era where law is weaponized and systemic shocks threaten existence, traditional advice creates blind spots. I operate where standard legal counsel ends and operational reality begins. By fusing legal precision with security and strategic foresight, I provide the resilience architecture that organizations need to survive. This means: I don’t just interpret the rules; I create the frameworks to secure your endurance and sovereignty in a volatile world…
This singular vantage point is forged from a career mastering the world’s most demanding environments: from the elite legal rigor of Hengeler Mueller to the high-stakes corporate reality of global leaders like Merck and BD. This multidisciplinary mastery – validated by appointments to the German Bundestag and the University of Oxford – is codified by a Best in Class MBA in Security & Disaster Management. It was here, in my thesis Risk Assessment of AI Systems under the EU AI Act, that I developed the blueprint for translating abstract legal compliance into measurable operational logic. This combination allows me to deliver what many others cannot: actionable strategies that hold firm when reality strikes.
Geoeconomic Law
Geoeconomics is the modern battlefield. It describes a world where nations primarily use economic instruments – not military force – to achieve their strategic, geopolitical goals. Control over technology, access to critical supply chains, and the strategic application of tariffs have become the new weapons in the global struggle for influence.
Geoeconomic Law, a term I coined in 2025, is the legal discipline based on interdisciplinary analyses, including the strategic interpretation of existing, often ineffective legal frameworks and the creation of new rules in the context of geoeconomic conflicts.
Read more and follow my ongoing analyses on LinkedIn (English or German) to anticipate the next strategic shift and stay ahead of emerging threats.
The Offer
My approach goes beyond standard legal advice. With a Best in Class MBA in Security & Disaster Management, I combine legal precision with operational rigor. I don’t just tell you what is legally required; I design the structures that ensure your organization survives and adapts in a volatile world.
I deliver this expertise through five clear mandates:
Briefings
I cannot predict the future, but I can help to prepare for it. In this intensive briefing, I decode complex geopolitical, technological, and legal shifts for your Board and C-suite. You receive a clear, actionable situational picture to base your high-stakes decisions on facts, not guesses.
Resilience Architecture
This is where legal theory meets physical reality. I help you design the governance frameworks and emergency protocols needed to withstand systemic shocks, from hybrid warfare threats to supply chain collapses. We move from mere compliance to operational readiness and organizational defence hardening, manifested in structural innovations such as the Chief Resilience & Civil Defence Officer (CRCDO).
AI Risk & Governance
Based on my award-winning research (Master’s Thesis, Grade 1.0), I translate the abstract requirements of the EU AI Act into measurable management protocols. We identify your specific AI risks and implement the necessary safeguards to ensure both innovation and liability protection.
The AI Governance Maturity Assessment is a special offer to verify the actual status of your AI Governance. Learn more here.
The Strategic Retainer
Uncertainty does not adhere to a schedule. As your permanent strategic sparring partner, I provide ongoing counsel to navigate evolving threats. I advise on the implementation of organisational defence hardening and the establishment of the Chief Resilience & Civil Defence Officer (CRCDO). This partnership ensures that you have a “Red Team” perspective at your side whenever a crisis looms.
Legal Advisory
Resilience starts in the fine print. I offer legal opinions, review your contracts to ensure they withstand geopolitical friction and systemic shocks. This is classic legal craftsmanship, elevated by a strategic security perspective that I have defined as Geoeconomic Law.
My practice focuses strictly on the regulatory backbones of modern resilience, in particular: Corporate Law, IT & Security Law, Product Safety & Liability, and Contingency Laws.
Contact me directly to schedule an initial conversation via e-mail or Threema (PJ726PHA).
Thought Leadership
True thought leadership does not merely comment on the discourse. It shapes it. My work focuses on creating actionable frameworks for challenges that traditional models cannot solve. This expertise is demonstrated by:
- Pioneering AI Governance: My foundational research on AI risk assessment (Master’s Thesis, Grade 1.0) provides the blueprint for operationalizing the most important task under the EU AI Act, while simultaneously building the necessary AI Risk Literacy to particularly ensure leadership actually grasps the risks they are governing.
- Defence Innovation: My concept for LLLC, a novel class of resilient consensus algorithms designed for hybrid warfare, was recognized by the German Federal Ministry of Defence. Furthermore, my White Paper on Trustworthy Military AI lays down the basics of safe and secure AI in the military domain.
- Organizational Defence Hardening: I introduced the concept of organizational defence hardening and the role of the Chief Resilience and Civil Defence Officer (CRCDO) to operationalize national defence requirements for the private sector, closing the gap between BCM and statutory security laws.
This synthesis of deep academic research and high-stakes application forms the intellectual foundation of Geoeconomic Law and the operational mandate of the CRCDO.
Work Examples & Analyses
LLLC: A Key to Resilient PNT in an Age of Hybrid Warfare
Our modern systems depend on PNT data (Positioning, Navigation, and Timing), but this data becomes unreliable during hybrid warfare. My research presents LLLC (Lightweight Low Latency Consensus), a new class of consensus algorithms designed to solve this problem for both civil and military applications.
This key technology idea was recognized by the German Federal Ministry of Defence and is built on three core principles:
#1: Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC): Secures the technology against future threats from quantum computers, ensuring its long-term integrity.
#2: Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT): Ensures distributed systems can reach a reliable consensus even when some components are compromised.
#3: Low Latency: Drastically reduces the time needed for these systems to make decisions, which is crucial for real-time tactical operations.
Risk Assessment: AI Systems
Risk is a widely misunderstood concept, particularly in the context of AI. To fulfill the requirements of the EU AI Act and beyond, a more fundamental understanding is necessary. My master’s thesis, awarded the highest possible grade (1.0), provides this foundation by developing two core innovations:
#1 A methodology to systematically assess risks, in particular AI-specific risks.
#2 A methodology to visualize and communicate these risks for risk management decisions.
White Paper: Introducing the Framework for Trustworthy Military AI
A Timely Response to Evolving Security Needs (9 March 2025). Download
The RUBY Incident: Anatomy of a Near-Catastrophe
The 2024 incident involving the cargo ship RUBY demonstrated deep flaws in disaster management. My analysis based on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) identified a cascade of shortcomings in institutional coordination, risk calculation, and communication.
Lesson #1: The ability to build a sovereign, data-driven situational picture is the foundation for moving from a position of dependence on chance to one of strategic control.
Lesson #2: Communication is a twofold imperative. Internally, to ensure effective coordination between actors. Externally, to maintain public trust and prevent a loss of control.
US-Law Firms Study: Resistance or Deal?
My empirical study on how top-tier U.S. law firms reacted to political pressure in 2025 revealed a sobering pattern with two key lessons for any leadership team:
Lesson #1: A robust risk assessment must transcend short-term economic interests. It must consciously integrate long-term, systemic risks to provide a true basis for sovereign decision-making.
Lesson #2: Systemic risks, like the erosion of the rule of law, are not external factors to be managed. They are a core leadership responsibility.
The Unlawfulness of Shareholder Value Maximization
The doctrine of shareholder value maximization is one of the most powerful and persistent dogmas in modern business. My historico-legal analysis of its origins reveals that this concept, largely based on flawed US economic theories from the 1970s, stands in direct conflict with the law.
Lesson #1: The relentless focus on short-term shareholder interests is not a legal obligation, but an ideological choice. It often leads to value-destroying decisions and neglects the board’s actual fiduciary duty, which is to the long-term stability and well-being of the company itself.
Lesson #2: Adherence to this flawed doctrine creates significant, often overlooked, personal liability risks for board members and executives. Decisions justified by “shareholder value” can be legally challenged as a breach of duty, especially when long-term systemic risks are ignored.
The Panic Myth
In times of crisis, authorities often operate under the assumption that the public will react with panic to open communication. My analysis of risk communication during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the face of new epidemic threats proves the opposite: It is not the threat itself, but contradictory and insufficient official communication that is the primary trigger for panic.
Lesson #1: The belief in a “panic risk” leads to a counterproductive withholding of information by those in charge. This creates a vacuum that is filled by disinformation, which in turn erodes trust in institutions.
Lesson #2: Genuine panic arises when people perceive a serious threat but feel they are losing control because official information is conflicting or inadequate. Sovereign leadership in a crisis, therefore, does not mean managing information; it means creating trust through maximum, comprehensible transparency.
Threat Anticipation (here: H5N1)
My risk analysis of the HPAI A(H5N1) situation, based on continuous OSINT monitoring, revealed two critical lessons for leadership, typical for an age of uncertainty:
Lesson #1: Official and actual risk levels often diverge, as the true nature of a threat remains unknown in the early and middle stages. The higher the individual risk, the more important is an individual risk assessment and management.
Lesson #2: Uncertainty must be communicated and addressed openly. This is not a sign of weakness, but the very foundation of building trust and enabling timely preparatory measures.
Pro Bono, Latest Public Appearances and Engagements
The Latest List
Ongoing since 2025: Founder and Curator of AI Risk Literacy A public educational platform dedicated to providing clear, scientifically-grounded, and actionable insights on AI risk and regulation for a global audience.
November 2024: Successful campaign and commitment to the continuation of wastewater surveillance in Germany in order to have sufficient data for public health purposes and promote (digital) health solutions
November 2024: Digital Health Week 2024 – Free AI Literacy training course “AI Risk Assessment: First Steps,” presented alongside experts from the OECD and Johns Hopkins University.
September 2024: Geneva Digital Health Hub – Training course: “A Look into the Future of AI powered Digital Health: A practice-oriented introduction to the new EU AI Act”
May/June 2024: Space and Global Health Hackathon with partner ESA on 31 May and 1 June 2024; designing and leading the challenge “EO-ISLAIS”
April 2024: German Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction 2024 organized by German Red Cross and German Federal Office for Foreign Affairs: Initiator and leader of the workshop on the liability of public officials and volunteers
Memberships
- Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) – GCSP Alumni Network
- Space and Global Health Network (UNOOSA, Geneva Digital Health Hub)
- German Space Agency at DLR, INNOspace: Space2Health Network
Connect and Engage
- LinkedIn (@cotinheidelberg)
- Bluesky (@claudiainthesky.bsky.social)