Our Advice. Your Advantage.

  +32 2 240 54 84

Partner, French.

Jacques founded Avisa Partners and is in charge of our competition practice.

Jacques has more than two decades of government and private sector expertise.

Before coming to Brussels, he served in both the French and German defence ministries and the French treasury.  From 1995 to 1999, he was the member of cabinet in charge of the euro in the cabinet of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner. He then served as Microsoft’s European Director of Corporate Affairs.

Since 2002, he has worked as an independent consultant. He benefits from an extended network of contacts in Brussels and national capitals.

He is the author of several books on Europe.  He lectures on EU affairs at several universities including HEC, Mines Paris and Sciences Po in Paris, and is a regular contributor to Euro Zone Advisors and other political or business intelligence agencies.

Jacques was listed by the Financial Times in June 2009 among the 30 "Eurostars", the prime influencers of policy and legislation in Brussels. The list comprised only two consultants. He was also finalist for the 2009 prize of 'Consultant of the year' in the European Public affairs (EPA) Awards.

Jacques is graduated from the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique.

Jacques is fluent in French, English and German.

+32 2 240 54 81

Managing Partner, Danish.

Laila directs the environment practice.

She spent several years in the cabinet of environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregard before helping to launch Avisa Partners.

Laila has worked for more than a decade on environmental issues, including maritime, aviation and other industry emissions, emissions trading, product energy efficiency.  

Laila has a bachelor in economics and political science from Saint Louis University in Brussels and a Master of European Judicial studies from the European Institute of Public Administration in Luxembourg.

She is fluent in Danish, English and French.

  +33 6 07 49 55 60

Director, Head of Paris Office, Lebanese

Carlos is Avisa’s consultant on racing, gaming and general sport issues.

Carlos developed his skills as International Director and Board Member in important European groups, as Banca Commerciale Italiana, Mondial Assistance and recently in PMU France.

He speaks French, English, Arabic, Spanish and Italian and understands Portuguese, German and Russian.

+32 2 240 54 82

Director, British.

Claire is a UK qualified solicitor with extensive competition experience in private practice both in the UK and in Brussels.

She joined the competition department of Herbert Smith in 1989.  Since then she was a case handler at the Office of Fair Trading, spent 5 years at  the Brussels office of  Allen & Overy, and gained experience at the European Commission.

Claire is a graduate of the University of Warwick, where she obtained an honors degree.  She has a postgraduate certificate in competition policy from Nottingham Trent University and a postgraduate diploma in Competition Law  from King’s College, London.

She is fluent in English and French.

Director, French and Italian 

Charles Seidenberg is advising notably on European competition and State aid policy.

Prior to Avisa Partners, Charles worked as administrator and internal advisor on State aids at DG Competition of the European Commission. During his 7 year tenure at DG Competition, he was involved in more than 300 state aid case reviews of companies’ financing and restructuring in sectors including telecoms, information technology, media services, health, postal services, manufacturing, and research and development among others.  

In addition to his broad experience with competition policy matters, Charles brings his expertise as an economist and engineer to Avisa Partners.  

Before joining the European Commission, he was an investment banker at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and consultant for premier private equity and venture capital funds in London and Paris.

Charles was educated in business engineering at Ecole de Commerce Solvay in Brussels, business administration at L.U.I.S.S. in Rome and ESCP in Paris. and economics at College of Europe in Bruges. Appart from French and Italian, Charles speaks English, German, Spanish and Dutch.

  +32 2 240 54 85

Senior Consultant, French and Swiss.

He is mainly dealing with internal market issue. His expertise lies also in transport and energy policy.

Former legal-trainee at the EFTA, he subsequently worked at the Secretariat General of the European Commission on transport and energy issues.

Before joining Avisa Partners in January 2007, Nicolas was in charge of business intelligence and markets characteristics in a Brussels’ based American company.

Nicolas studied business Law and EU Law at the Aix-en Provence University. He was also educated in International Politics at the ULB in Brussels where he took a specialisation on Energy and Security issues. A native French speaker, he also speaks English and Italian.

  +32 2 240 54 86

Senior Consultant, German and Spanish.

His expertise lies in environment and climate change policy.

From 2004 to 2008 Tomás has worked in the European Parliament as an assistant to German Liberal MEP Holger Krahmer.There he has worked on the air quality directive, car emissions and REACH, among other issues.

Tomás has earned previous work experience at the Bertelsmann Group for Policy Research and the Bavarian State Chancellery.

Tomás studied Political Science, International Law and Philosophy at the University of Munich. Tomás grew up in Colombia and Spain. Apart from his mother tongues, German, Spanish and Catalan, he is fluent in English and French.

  +32 2 240 54 83

Consultant, Dutch.

In 2007 he worked as a trainee at the Unit International Relations of DG COMP of the European Commission.

In addition, he worked as an intern at the Netherlands Competition Authority and as a student-assistant for the eEurope Awards Project at the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA).

Niels has studied International Law and European Law at the Maastricht University. A native Dutch speaker, he also speaks English, German and basics of French.

  +32 2 240 27 10 

Consultant, Spanish.

She has a business administration background with finance specialty.

Just before joining Avisa she worked at the European Insurance Association dealing with financial services such as Solvency II, Block Exemption Regulation, the Insurance Guarantee Scheme and Occupational Retirement provision.

This followed a stage in 2008 at the Financing standardization Unit of DG ENTR of the European Commission.

A graduate of the College of Europe in Bruges with a Master in European Economic Studies in 2008, she also attended London School of Economics during 2007.

A native Spanish speaker, she also speaks English, French and has basic German.

Polish.

She assists the entire competition team on all relevant issues. 

She has completed her curriculum at ESSEC MBA, a French business school in Paris and is finishing her Master Degree in European Business Law at the Paris II Panthéon Assas University.

Polish native speaker, she speaks fluently French and English, and has basics of Spanish.