Oppenheim Announces New Management Board

Oppenheim Announces New Management Board

Hungary
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Oppenheim has announced the leadership of the firm will be handed over to its three newly-appointed board members – Jozsef Bulcsu Fenyvesi, Aron Laszlo, and Istvan Szatmary – with Fenyvesi and Laszlo to hold non-executive roles and Szatmary to take over the role of Managing Partner on July 1, 2022.

The three take over from Partners Ulrike Rein, Tamas Eless, and Zsolt Cseledi.

Focusing on corporate and commercial law, Fenyvesi has been with the former Freshfields Hungarian office since 2005, making Partner in 2010. Prior to that, he was an Associate with Szalay Gabor Law Firm.

Focusing on IP/IT and trademarks and design, Laszlo also worked with Freshfields in Hungary between 2002 and 2005. He then worked for SBGK, between 2005 and 2013, to rejoin the Oppenheim team in 2014 as the Head of Trademarks and Designs. He was appointed to Partner in 2017.

Szatmary, who will be serving as the firm’s Managing Partner going forward, joined the team this year as its Head of Antitrust, Competition, and Trade (as reported by CEE In-House Matters on May 2, 2022). He returned to private practice earlier this year after serving as Mediaworks Hungary's General Counsel for three years. Prior to him moving in-house, he worked with DLA Piper in Hungary for 21 years, where he was last a Senior Counsel and Head of Antitrust.

“After more than one and a half decades of leadership, I am happy to support the new generation of talented professionals in the transition process and wish them all the best in their new roles,” Rein commented, with Eless adding: “The appointment of the three experienced, yet dynamic partners into the top-level leadership of the firm will bring in new management initiatives that quickly respond to the current challenges of businesses.” From the former leadership’s side Cseledi concluded that “the operational model built by the management team in the last 15 years is a strong foundation for the new members, and they can use it as a stable basis for their future work.”

On the new management side, Laszlo commented: “I am personally very devoted to bringing the organization to the next level while preserving its unique values,” with Fenyvesi noting that his “many years of experience in leading the corporate and M&A team of the firm can be well utilized when dealing with firm-wide issues.” The new Managing Partner, Szatmary, concluded that he sees his executive role as a “service that should be for the benefit of the firm’s staff at all levels, and should improve operational efficiency whilst preserving all those characteristics of Oppenheim that have made this successful team unique in the market.”