Karl Pilny

Why organisations work with Karl Pilny

• Three decades of operating inside Asian deal rooms, not commentary from the outside. He opened Coudert Brothers’ Berlin office in 1995 and has structured M&A and joint ventures between European, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Indian companies since the late 1980s.
• A published long-range thesis on Asia. Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018) sets out his case that four of the five most powerful economies will soon be Asian, with implications boards can act on.
• Legal and commercial fluency in the same person. PhD from the Max Planck Institute for International Intellectual Property, professorship at bbw Hochschule Berlin, and a working life spent advising entrepreneurs and family offices through asia21 GmbH.
• Delivery in German, English and Japanese. Few European Asia speakers can hold a Tokyo board conversation in the language of the room.

Biography highlights

• Founder and Managing Director, asia21 GmbH, Zurich (since 2006).
• Professor of International Technology Transfer Management, bbw Hochschule Berlin (since 2018).
• Author of Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018), nominated for the getAbstract International Book Award 2020.
• Author of the Das asiatische Jahrhundert trilogy and the Investment Guide Asien.
• Former resident partner at Coudert Brothers, where he opened the Berlin office in 1995; later Managing Partner Germany at Travers Smith.
• PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Japan Department; former lecturer at the universities of Kyoto and Osaka.

Biography

Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018) argued that four of the five most powerful economies would soon be Asian, and that European companies were already late to price the shift. The book was nominated for the getAbstract International Book Award in 2020. It set out the case that Karl Pilny had been making for years in board rooms across Germany, Switzerland and Japan.

That argument is anchored in unusual depth of practice. After a PhD at the Max Planck Institute for International Intellectual Property and a teaching post in German law at Kyoto and Osaka, he spent a decade as a partner at Coudert Brothers, opening the firm’s Berlin office in 1995. He went on to lead Travers Smith’s German practice before founding asia21 GmbH in Zurich in 2006, advising entrepreneurs, family offices and corporates on investment into and out of Asia.

The work spans renewable energy, infrastructure, financial services and consumer goods, and the books span a wider field still: the Das asiatische Jahrhundert trilogy, the Investment Guide Asien, and the political thrillers Japan Inc. and Korea Inc. Since 2018 he has held a professorship in International Technology Transfer Management at bbw Hochschule Berlin, where he teaches on innovation leadership in Asian companies and on digitalisation.

For European leadership teams the value is direct. He has structured the deals, written the long-range analysis and worked in the languages. He can take a board through the political risk in a China exposure, the cultural mechanics of a Japanese joint venture and the capital flows reshaping Southeast Asia in a single session.

Key speaking topics

• Asia macroeconomic trajectories to 2030
• China, Japan, Korea and India political risk
• Cross-border M&A and joint ventures in Asia
• Investment strategy for European corporates and family offices
• Renewable energy and infrastructure capital flows in Asia
• Technology transfer and IP between Europe and Asia
• Cross-cultural negotiation with Asian counterparties

Ideal for

• Boards and executive committees of European corporates with material Asia exposure
• Chief strategy officers, corporate development and M&A leads working on Asian deals
• Family offices, foundations and institutional investors allocating into emerging Asia
• Industry conferences on energy transition, infrastructure and financial services touching Asia

Audience outcomes

• A defensible read on where capital, technology and political weight are moving across Asia to 2030
• Specific implications for European market entry, joint ventures and M&A in China, Japan, Korea and India
• A sharper view of cross-cultural risk in Asian deal structures, drawn from named cases
• A framework for sequencing Asia exposure across sectors, from renewables to consumer goods