Building Resilience for Uncertain Tomorrows.

When faced with the unprecedented, the human instinct is to seek the familiar. You might notice a tendency to cling tighter to established relationships, processes, and products that represent a stable, predictable status quo. However, that status quo is no more. Scaling and insisting on its preservation is denial combined with increasing vulnerability, not resilience.

Disruption is inherently hard to plan for. It implies, by definition, that familiar playbooks no longer work. Though often left unspoken, this is already understood. Yet, the way out remains unclear.

My work is backed by the elite legal rigour of Hengeler Mueller and the corporate reality of global leaders like Merck and BD. Validated by the German Bundestag and the University of Oxford, I provide tailored strategic and operational frameworks needed with a strong scientific and practice-oriented basis.

My expertise is further grounded in my engagement in scientific diplomacy, including at the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). By bridging the gap between technical innovation in, e.g., the tech and health sectors and global legal standards, I help secure peace at the world’s most critical frontiers.

Complex crises cannot be solved in echo chambers. I join your boards, task forces, and strategic roundtables as an independent external expert, or advise on panel composition to prevent cognitive biases in your Strategic Foresight initiatives. By deliberately challenging assumptions and exposing legal, technological, and geopolitical blind spots, I break groupthink. I ensure your high-stakes panels produce actionable resilience instead of a comfortable, self-validating consensus.

Resilience cannot be built on vague terms. It requires a legally, strategically, and operationally binding objective. However, the definition of resilience for Germany and the sub-definitions for its actors are specifically tailored to its Basic Law and unique structure. They cannot simply be transferred to another state or entity. Thus, I translate the abstract concept of resilience into a precise, system-specific definition tailored to, for example, individual states, societies, or organisations. Establishing this definitive baseline is the mandatory first step to ensure that all subsequent measures are targeted, measurable, and effective.

Resilience includes the functional capacity for self-preservation, which cannot be achieved by scaling the status quo into a world that no longer exists. Innovation is indispensable. I help you overcome institutional innovation inertia with legal precision, drawing on my experience in lecturing on digital innovation and my research into historical organisational survival. I provide a strategic masterplan to ensure your organisation possesses not just the strategic will, but also the practical means to innovate. This secures your essential contribution to society even under extreme pressure.

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 organisational defence hardening, manifested in structural innovations such as the Chief Resilience & Civil Defence Officer (CRCDO).

Resilience starts in the fine print. I offer legal opinions and 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 on the regulatory backbones of modern resilience, in particular: Corporate Law, IT & Security Law, Product Safety & Liability, and Contingency Laws.

Resilience has become a buzzword, leaving decision-makers with no clear path to action. I provide clarity through high-end briefings and keynotes that offer actionable approaches for a war-related reality. My sessions deliver the necessary basics to operationalise complex new disciplines ranging from Geoeconomic Law and Organisational Hardening (CRCDO) to implementing a Finnish-style resilience architecture.

The current discourse on resilience shows a broad misunderstanding and divergence regarding what resilience actually is. One of the reasons is that existing definitions are vague and therefore not helpful for legislative, administrative, or corporate action. Currently, neither organizations nor authorities are able to determine what it means to be resilient and, consequently, what specific measures must be taken. This uncertainty undermines the very goal of resilience.

For Germany, I developed a definition that has its foundation in the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) and can be applied effectively through established means of interpretation within the respective fields of law, administration, corporate governance, and operations:

“Resilience of a society means the ability of a society to maintain Public Safety and Order (Öffentliche Sicherheit und Ordnung).”

For organisations, the applied definition is:

“Resilience of an organisation means the ability of an organisation to maintain its contribution to Public Safety and Order (Öffentliche Sicherheit und Ordnung).”

Lesson #1: Resilience must be in line with, and therefore derived from, constitutional principles to create a reliable framework that synchronises the actions of all society’s actors. This is because a society’s resilience requires contributions from all of society’s actors.

Lesson #2: Resilience is a functional capacity for self-preservation to ensure the preservation of the systems in which an actor like an organisation is integrated.

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 recognised 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 involving 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 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 visualise and communicate these risks for risk management decisions.

A Timely Response to Evolving Security Needs (9 March 2025). Download

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.

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 doctrine of shareholder value maximisation 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.

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 hazards proves the opposite: It is not the hazard 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 hazard 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.

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 hazard 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.

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

1. Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) – GCSP Alumni Network
2. Space and Global Health Network (UNOOSA, Geneva Digital Health Hub)
3. German Space Agency at DLR, INNOspace: Space2Health Network

1. LinkedIn (@cotinheidelberg)
2. Bluesky (@claudiainthesky.bsky.social)