Christoph Lindinger has been the managing partner of Schoenherr since 2001. Under Lindinger's leadership, the Vienna-headquartered firm expanded to create a comprehensive network across Central and Southeastern Europe, with offices in 11 CEE jurisdictions joining the Bucharest office that had already been launched in 1996. In addition to his management role, Christoph Lindinger heads Schoenherr’s Dispute Resolution practice. He focuses on domestic and international arbitration proceedings conducted under the rules of the world's leading arbitration institutions (such as ICC and VIAC), with a particular emphasis on arbitration proceedings arising under bilateral investment treaties and post-M&A arbitrations.

Gabor Orban is Senior Advisor at Rothschild since September 2015 and Managing Director of ECOFIN Group Kft. Prior to that from April 2013 to July 2015 he was State Secretary for taxation and Financial Sector Regulation at the Hungarian Ministry for National Economy. At the ministry he was in charge of the ministry’s activities in the following areas: debt management, relations with financial international institutions, in particular the European Commission and EIB, preparation of legislation regulating the financial sector, macroeconomic analysis and forecasting, tax legislation, tax rulings, tax administration and fighting tax evasion, supervision of the national tax authority, and accounting. He was the chief negotiator of an intergovernmental loan arrangements related to a major infrastructure project, and several EIB loan agreements. He negotiated the Memorandum of Understanding between the EBRD and the Government of Hungary on the future of the Hungarian banking sector. He also participated in the creation of the Banking Union and several sovereign bond issues, including an exchangeable bond.
Gabor is founding Chairman of the Board of Bank Resolution Fund in Hungary, which was set up following the transposition of the EU’s Bank Resolution and Recovery Directive (BRRD) into Hungarian legislation. He is also Member of the Board of the Deposit Guarantee Fund in Hungary. He participated in several depositor compensation procedures following bank failures and financing of DGF following its depletion in 2015.
From May 2013 to May 2014 he was member of the Supervisory Board of the National Bank in Hungary.
From October 2007 to March 2013 Gabor was Head of the Fixed Income Desk at AEGON CEE Asset Management where he was in charge of the team that managed the fixed income investments of Aegon Group and their clients in Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland and Romania. Prior to that he was Senior Economist at the National Bank of Hungary and Economist at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt in External Developments Division, Global Economy Section.
Gabor holds a diploma in Finance and in Economy Policy from the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration.

Bill has over 20 years' experience of deal making in the CEE region, both as an investor and as an advisor. Although based in CEE Equity’s office in Warsaw, he spends much of his time travelling in CEE / SEE.  
He joined CEE Equity in October 2013, and was initially responsible for 15 of the Fund’s 16 countries. He initiated and started the execution of the Fund’s first investment outside Poland – the partial buy-out of Hungary’s leading private university in December 2014. 
More recently he initiated and led the execution team in CEE Equity’s co-investment with Black Peak Capital into Walltopia, the world leader in the manufacture and installation of indoor climbing walls, which completed at the end of August 2015. CEE Equity is both pleased and excited to have made an investment into this fast growing Bulgarian company. 
His area of responsibility is now (slightly) more manageable - Czech, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and all of former Yugoslavia. 










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Dimitar Kostadinov is a Managing Partner at Entrea Capital. Dimitar joined the firm in 2008 and has been instrumental for its development as the leading independent investment banking service provider in Bulgaria. He successfully executed multiple fundraising, debt restructuring and M&A transactions with a focus on the FMCG and industrials sectors.
Prior to joining Entrea Capital, Dimitar Kostadinov served as the executive director, head of clients, and a member of the management team at ING Bank, Bulgaria. Dimitar was responsible for ING’s portfolio of corporate clients, strategic positioning, and all aspects of business origination and relationship management in the country. During his tenure at ING, Dimitar led the overall development of structured finance and corporate banking operations in the country through leveraging ING’s international product expertise.
In 2004, upon returning to Bulgaria, Dimitar acted as the financial and economic advisor to the country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Communications, advising him on policy issues in the transportation, infrastructure, and telecommunications sectors. Dimitar managed senior staff in the restructuring and strengthening of key state-owned enterprises in the telecommunications and marine transport sectors.
From 2001 to 2004, Dimitar was an equity research analyst at UBS Investment Banking, initially in Tokyo, Japan, and subsequently in London, the UK. At UBS, Dimitar covered the Consumer Goods and TMT sectors. While at UBS London, Dimitar published research reports and recommended investment strategies with a focus on the European FMCG sector. He liaised with companies’ senior management to discuss financial results and corporate strategic positioning. While as UBS Tokyo, Dimitar researched Japanese media stocks with a focus on advertising, broadcasting, and satellite sectors. He also helped develop the bank’s proprietary trading desk and worked on the IPO of Dentsu, the largest Japanese advertising agency.
Dimitar started his financial career with Salomon Smith Barney in the US where he developed and implemented equity and mutual funds investment strategies for high-net-worth investors.
Dimitar holds an MBA degree in International Finance from Brandeis University and a BA degree in Business Administration from the American University in Bulgaria (AUBG).

Ilko Stoyanov is a local partner of Schoenherr in Sofia, where he specialises in Corporate, M&A and Competition Law.
Ilko has graduated in law from the Sofia University and has an LL.M. degree from the Columbia Law School.
Ilko regularly acts for clients on multinational acquisitions and corporate restructurings in the telecom, technology, insurance, manufacturing and energy industries. Ilko is speaker on conferences regarding foreign investments and author of publications in the field of the mergers and acquisitions in Bulgaria (The International Comparative Legal Guide to: Mergers & Acquisition (Global Legal Group, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011).


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Todor Todorov is Director Financial Advisory at Deloitte Bulgaria. 
Todor started his career as an investment banker in the New York office of J.P. Morgan in the M&A department of the bank. Four years later he co-founded a small hedge fund investing in U.S. equities and derivative products.
Over the last 7 years Todor has been advising Bulgarian companies and locally present multinationals in business combinations, capital raising and restructuring projects. Todor is currently part of the financial advisory team in Deloitte Central Europe and is responsible for the M&A advisory business in Bulgaria.
In his career Todor contributed to the successful execution of transactions with an aggregate value in excess of €4bln.








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Julian Gikov is CEO of Raiffeisen Investment (Bulgaria) and M&A Director responsible for SEE region, where he has been involved in deal advisory for the last 8 years. He has consulted on numerous large international M&A transactions – many of those jointly executed with Lazard. He has extensive investment banking experience in the energy, telecommunications, heavy industry, consumer goods, retail, agriculture, ТМТ, RE and other sectors. In 2011, Julian Gikov received "Best M&A Deal in CEE" prize awarded to Raiffeisen Investment by the international EMEA Finance magazine for consulting a EUR 545 million deal in the energy sector in Bulgaria.
Prior to that, as part of KPMG’s Financial Services team, Julian has worked on assurance and corporate finance projects including audit, due diligence, IPOs and securitizations in various industries with focus on financial institutions. Julian has previous experience at UBS, London - Investment Banking and Fixed Income divisions and as well as at Ernst & Young, Stuttgart - Corporate Finance Dpt. where he was involved in M&A, squeeze-out transactions and enterprise valuations. He also had internship at Bloomberg, London. 
Mr. Gikov is PhD in Economics. He is MBA from SIU in Germany and USA, and holds a Bachelor in Financial Management & Accounting from The Buckingham University in the UK. He has also specialised in Banking at LSE, London.



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Mr. Elvin Guri is an investor and entrepreneur with a successful track record in financial services. He is currently CEO of River Styxx Capital, an investment and advisory firm. In addition, Mr. Guri is the CEO of Empower Capital Advisor, which will manage the 15 mln. euro co-investment fund as part of the Jeremie programme. He started his career as Auditor at Price Waterhouse in Sofia. Starting from October 1996, he spent more than five years with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), both in London and in Sofia.  Mr. Guri co-founded JetFinance International (JetFinance), a consumer finance institution, in 2001-2002. Post JetFinance, Mr. Guri has been involved, as an investor and as a mentor, in financial services and in technology ventures.







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Valeri Petrov is Partner at Axxess Capital.
Previously, he was partner at Bancroft Private Equity covering the company’s activities on the Balkans. Before joining Bancroft he was Investment Director with the private equity firm Global Finance, running the company’s activities in Bulgaria. Valeri led and co-led many transactions in different countries across the SEE region.
Prior to moving to the Private Equity industry Valeri was running the biggest paints& coatings company in Bulgaria (backed by private equity funds) as CEO where he did a complete turnaround bringing the company up to high profit levels and increasing its market capitalization almost ten times.
Valeri also worked for the Royal Dutch/Shell, and held various positions within the organisation.
Valeri holds an MSc in Engineering from the Technical University of Sofia. He also attended Management Academy in London and ETP on Business Management in Delaware University, Sofia branch.