Governance
Advisory Board
Composed mainly of senior representatives of German banks, the Advisory Board is a key body within BKS | The European NPL Alliance.
Under the BKS statutes, the Advisory Board is responsible in particular for developing and maintaining standardised guidelines for legally compliant, capital-market-oriented trading and the management of non-performing loans within the German jurisdiction. It also develops professional standards for the management of loan portfolios. These guidelines and standards are adopted by the General Meeting at the request of the Executive Committee and form the foundation for the professional and responsible activities of BKS members.
Other tasks of the Advisory Board include:
- Advising the Executive Committee on strategic and technical issues
- Promoting the exchange of experience and cooperation between members
- Representing the interests of the industry vis-à-vis relevant stakeholders
- Support in the further development and professionalisation of the market for loan purchasing and servicing
By closely involving experts from the banks, the Advisory Board keeps its work practical and aligned with the needs of the sector. It also draws on the experience and expertise of its members to develop forward-looking solutions.
Members
The Advisory Board
Its members bring practical experience from credit risk, workout and portfolio management across German banks and the wider financial sector.
Prof Dr Christoph Schalast
Chairman of the Advisory Board
Christoph Schalast is a lawyer, notary and expert in commercial law based in Frankfurt am Main. After studying law in Frankfurt, Lausanne, Saarbrücken and Strasbourg, he gained valuable experience at renowned law firms before setting up his own practice in Frankfurt in 1995. Schalast’s expertise is regularly recognised by industry publications such as JUVE, Handelsblatt and Legal 500 Germany, and WirtschaftsWoche ranks him among the leading advisers for M&A and banking in Germany. He serves on numerous committees and associations, including as editor of the journal M&A Review and head of the M&A LL.M. programme at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. He also chairs the annual NPL Forum and the M&A/Private Equity conferences. Since the 1990s, he has advised ministries and institutions in transition states on legal reform and harmonisation with EU law, and has contributed to legislation in Slovenia, Lithuania, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He is regularly quoted by German and international business media on legal matters and comments on current developments on radio and television.
Sandra Förster
Member of the Advisory Board
Sandra Förster has worked for DKB AG since 1997 and has held several management positions there, ranging from sales, product development and production management to risk and fraud management. Since 2018 she has been Head of Credit Consult and a Director of DKB AG. Across all customer groups, she is responsible for early risk identification, intensive and problem-loan support, and the processing and sale of collateralised and uncollateralised NPL portfolios and individual exposures. The integrated risk-provisioning process under IFRS 9 also plays an important role in this work. She has also supported various DKB projects on digitalisation, outsourcing and workout matters.
Janine Hardi
Member of the Advisory Board
Janine Hardi has been a qualified lawyer since 2003 and runs the information and advisory platform for property annuities ‘RentePlusImmobilie’, which she founded in 2021. Until 2020 she was Managing Director at FMS-Wertmanagement AöR, where she had established the International Commercial Real Estate division in 2011 following the state takeover of the distressed HRE portfolio. Before that, she spent five years at Hudson Advisors Germany, responsible for property-backed loan portfolios in Germany, including 18 months in Bermuda overseeing investor support for the Lone Star Funds’ NPL portfolios. As a lawyer, she advises NPL investors and creditors during due diligence and workout phases. She is also a certified Digital Transformation Manager. In 2018 she received the Bavarian Volunteer Award for her long service on the board of a non-profit association. Since 2022 she has headed the ‘Bankfachwirt’ programme in the ‘Law’ department of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
Torsten Kohl
Member of the Advisory Board
Torsten Kohl has more than 20 years of experience in handling non-performing and at-risk credit exposures. As divisional director, he is responsible for problem-loan management at Mainzer Volksbank eG. Before this, he headed the Special Tasks Credit department, where he was responsible for the sale of various NPL portfolios. He completed a banking apprenticeship and then graduated in business administration.
Lars Löffelholz
Member of the Advisory Board
Lars Löffelholz is Head of GRM Intensive Care Service Centre and Managing Director of Commerz Service-Center Intensive GmbH, part of Commerzbank AG. He previously spent several years there as Head of Workout Domestic and Private Clients Standard. From 2004 to 2008 he was responsible for distressed loan sales at Eurohypo AG. He is a qualified banker and holds a degree in business administration.
Sabine Otte
Member of the Advisory Board
Sabine Otte is Director of Risk Management | Receivables Management Strategy at TARGOBANK AG and has more than 20 years of experience in risk management. This includes the origination and portfolio management of credit products as well as the workout strategies and operational handling of non-performing and at-risk credit exposures in several countries. In her current role as Director Receivables Management Strategy, she is responsible for workout and outsourcing strategies and for the sale of secured and unsecured NPL portfolios. As a Global Management Associate at Citigroup, she gained experience in several countries, and since 1999 she has held management positions in financial services in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. Before moving into banking, she worked for the Bavarian State Ministry for Federal and European Affairs in Brussels. She holds a European Secretary ESA from the European Secretarial Academy, Vienna, and a Master of Business Administration from Texas Christian University, Fort Worth.
Claus Radünz
Member of the Advisory Board
Claus Radünz is responsible for the secondary market in distressed and defaulted loans at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW). Before joining LBBW in 2009, he worked at Commerzbank AG and Credit Suisse in Frankfurt, London and Singapore, where he was responsible for building up distressed loan trading and for the restructuring of financial institutions, sovereigns and major international companies. He is a banker and property specialist (IHK), studied in Frankfurt and Edinburgh, and holds a degree in business administration from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management (formerly Hochschule für Bankwirtschaft). He is a member of the advisory board of Bundesvereinigung Kreditankauf und Servicing e. V. (BKS), a board member of Deutsche Kreditmarkts-Standards e. V. (DKS) and the author of various publications on credit trading, restructuring and training.
Boris Rickmann
Member of the Advisory Board
Boris Rickmann is Senior Project Manager at Deutsche Bank in the Collections, Recoveries & Workout department. His work focuses on planning and implementing the NPL portfolio strategy for consumer finance and on process automation in this field. He is a certified Professional Scrum Master (PSM I). His earlier roles include senior positions at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group focusing on consumer finance, point-of-sale solutions and the credit card business, as well as roles in the call centre and back-office unit of Commerzbank AG.
João Soares
Member of the Advisory Board
João Soares has been Head of Collections & NPL at ING DiBa since November 2025, where he leads the Collections organisation and drives the bank’s technology- and data-driven transformation agenda across the end-to-end credit recovery value chain. He previously held several senior leadership roles at Barclays Consumer Europe, including Transformation Lead and Head of Collections, focusing on operating-model optimisation, digitalisation and portfolio management. Before that, he served at Novo Banco in Portugal as Head of Trade Finance, Mortgage Operations and Collections & Recovery, building extensive expertise across credit risk, operations and non-performing loans.
Oliver Teschke
Member of the Advisory Board
Oliver Teschke has been with Santander Consumer Bank AG since 2012 and, as Head of Late Collections & Portfolio Sales, is responsible for the bank’s terminated receivables portfolio. In this role, he focuses on improving recovery results sustainably through the strategic management of external collection partners. He is also responsible for the design, planning and execution of portfolio sales, covering both spot sales and forward flows.
Markus Thanner
Member of the Advisory Board
Markus Thanner is Head of Back Office Credit and Chief Representative of Bankhaus Bauer Privatbank Aktiengesellschaft. Until 2016 he was Managing Director of the co-operatively oriented HFI Finanz- und Investitions-Beratungsgesellschaft Hamm mbH (HFI). GFKL Financial Services AG (GFKL – now the Lowell Group), for which Thanner had worked since 2004 as Managing Director of Proceed Portfolio Services GmbH and Universal Leasing GmbH, among others, held a stake in HFI from 2007 to 2012. Before joining GFKL and BAG, he worked in the credit division of what is today UniCredit Bank GmbH and what is today VR Smart Finanz AG.
Dr Marcus von Zezschwitz
Member of the Advisory Board
Dr Marcus von Zezschwitz is a lawyer and was a member of the Management Board of Düsseldorfer Hypothekenbank AG until 2019. There, alongside the back-office property financing and capital markets division, he was responsible in particular for the legal, risk controlling and auditing departments. Before this role, he held senior positions at an international asset management company and in the credit and legal departments of several international banks.
How the Alliance is governed
The Advisory Board works alongside the Executive Committee and the office. Explore the wider governance structure and how the association operates.
