Biography

Christiane Hölz  is an attorney having studied in Germany and in France. She joined Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz e.V. (DSW) in 1999 and acts as managing director for the region North Rhine-Westphalia since 2011. DSW is the leading German investor association – a non-profit organisation founded in 1947 with more than 30.000 individual investors as members. The main objective of DSW is the protection of the interests of individual investors, including but not limited to shareholders, fundholders, and bondholders. At DSW, Christiane is primarily responsible for (international) Corporate Governance issues, as well as for DSW’s participation in legislative procedures regarding German and European regulation (focused on securities regulation, banking and finance law). Further tasks include giving legal advice to members of DSW and leading DSW’s research on governance-related issues, such as executive compensation, board structure etc. Christiane is also Vice Chair of the EU Commission’s Financial Services User Group (FSUG) and of ESMA’s Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group. She further serves as board member and member of the audit committee of a German mid-cap company. Christiane graduated in Law from the University of Cologne (First State Exam) and obtained her bar exam at the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf (Second State Exam).