Thank you, Jens Hillebrand Pohl - Welcome, Lena Hornkohl!

The CELIS Institute announces changes in its leadership team.

Jens Hillebrand Pohl decided to seek new challenges elsewhere and to step down from his post as CELIS Director. He kindly agreed, however, to stay on a bit longer, transiting in an advisory role.

The Institute has a lot to thank Jens for. He has been "co-midwife" of the Institute, partner in crime, and an extremely dedicated, hard-working co-director since the Institute’s inception in 2020.

We are very grateful to Jens for all his sparkling ideas, endless hours of work, fun and friendship during the Institute’s start-up phase. Together, we have run and hosted countless events on investment screening, we build a dedicated expert community, spanning across the continent and beyond, we turned CELIS’ annual conference into the first and foremost forum to discuss investment screening in Europe, and so much more.

Thank you for three amazing years, Jens. We wish you truly the best for all your new endeavours.

The Institute has invited Professor Lena Hornkohl to join the Institute as Deputy Director. She is Tenure Track Professor for European Law at the University of Vienna and a specialist in EU competition and private law.

We are extremely happy to have found with Lena an entrepreneurial-minded, highly motivated thought leader in the field, adding invaluable expertise to the Institute’s leadership. Welcome to the Institute, Lena!

Lena will focus in particular on the CELIS Country Reporters, our research agenda, and knowledge hub. Professor Steffen Hindelang will focus on overall strategy and operations as well as on CFIS – our flagship event. Janosch  Wiesenthal and Jonas Fechter will continue to develop our CELIS NOW initiative.

Building on our foundations, the  CELIS Institute will continue to thrive as an open, non-partisan, non-profit European stakeholder platform, where no certain type of player in the field will dominate. CELIS is about a trusted, open community of thought leaders in the field of investment screening and beyond. We will work in particular on the “beyond” in the forthcoming months and years – taking more firmly on economic security.

The CELIS Institute