Team

Mario Thurner
Managing Partner

Following several years’ research at the Research Institute of Central and Eastern European Business Law (FOWI) of the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Mario Thurner was the Managing Director of the CLC Association between 1999 and 2011, which over a period of 13 years primarily implemented EU-funded projects in the areas of land law, collateral security law, civil procedure law, enforcement law, insolvency law and justice management in close cooperation with experts from the Austrian justice system in (former) transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

In 2002 and 2003 Mario Thurner worked as a long-term expert and pre-accession adviser to an insolvency reform project in Bulgaria (“Streamlining Bankruptcy Proceedings”), he has successfully implemented numerous justice reform projects in Central and Eastern Europe as a project manager, in collaboration with Austrian judges and prosecutors, and can refer to a long list of publications and presentations in Austria and abroad, mainly on the topics of insolvency law and collateral security law in CEE transition countries, just as he is the co-author of a textbook on Austrian insolvency law.

For more than 15 years Mario Thurner has acted as a consultant for the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (vdp).

Since the beginning of 2011 Mario Thurner has been the managing shareholder of Center of Legal Competence (CLC) – Forschung & Consulting GmbH and has headed the Management Center for Victim Support (Managementzentrum Opferhilfe – MZ.O) for the Austrian Federal Ministry of Constitutional Affairs, Reforms, Deregulation and Justice (BMVRDJ).
 

Ninel Jasmine Sadjadi
Managing Partner

After studying law in Vienna and completing postgraduate studies on business law at the London School of Economics, Ninel Jasmine Sadjadi worked as project manager at the Center of Legal Competence (CLC) in numerous, mainly EU-funded projects of the CLC Association and CLC GmbH from 2000 to 2011.

From 2004 to 2005 she worked in Romania as a long-term expert and pre-accession advisor to a cadastre and land register reform project ("Multi-annual Programme for Implementation of the Cadastre and Real Property Rights Registration System in Romania – Phase 1"). Thereafter she worked as a short-term expert on various projects, in particular in the areas of land registry, mortgage law, strategy development and continuing education and training measures until 2010.

Since the beginning of 2011 Ninel Jasmine Sadjadi has been working for the Management Center for Victim Support (Managementzentrum Opferhilfe - MZ.O) of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Constitutional Affairs, Reforms, Deregulation and Justice (BMVRDJ) and has been the co-managing shareholder of the Center of Legal Competence (CLC) – Forschung & Consulting GmbH since 2013, where she is primarily responsible for the areas of family and youth court support, accounting and finance.
 

Bettina Kern
Psycho-social court assistance training coordinator

After having graduated from the Social Academy [Sozialakademie], studying at the University of Vienna and having been trained as a psychotherapist Bettina Kern worked at a women’s shelter in Lower Austria for three years; thereafter she worked at the TAMAR advisory centre for sexually-abused children, girls and women for 14 years and started to work at the UNDINE women’s advisory centre in Baden near Vienna in 2014.

At CLC Bettina Kern is responsible for coordinating the basic training of psycho-social court assistants.

Günther Walchshofer
Long-term Expert (Athens)

Dr. Günther Walchshofer started his career as a secondary school teacher for German and Musical Education in 1987. After studying law at the Karl Franzens University in Graz (1991-1994, Dr. iur. in 1997) he joined the Austrian judiciary and was appointed judge in 1999. He worked as a criminal-law and civil-law judge at several district and regional courts and was the president of District Court Fürstenfeld (Styria).

Since 2006 Günther Walchshofer has been working on various projects as a long-term and short-term expert for the (former) Federal Ministry of Justice in cooperation with CLC: he worked as a pre-accession advisor of the European Commission for approximately three years in Romania (“Strengthening the Institutional and Legislative Framework in the Field of International Judicial Co-operation”) and in Montenegro („Justice Reform“). Since September 2015 he has been advising the Greek Federal Ministry of Justice as a judicial expert in the course of the projects „Grant Agreement Technical Assistance on the Reform of the Greek Judicial System“.
 

Marianna Varnava
Projekt Assistant (Athens)

Marianna Varnava studied law with a focus on private international business law at the University of Vienna. After completing her court internship at the District Court Schwechat and at the Public Prosecutors’ Office in Vienna she joined an international law firm in Athens specialising in private international law and real property law.

As a Greek citizen she successfully passed the bar examination in Athens in 2015 and has since worked in cooperation with a Greek law firm. Marianna Varnava is fluent in German, Greek and English. She is a member of the Athens Bar Association and of the Association of Greek Certified Court Interpreters.

In February 2018 she completed the team of the "Grant Agreement Technical Assistance on the Reform of the Greek Judicial System” projects in Athens.
 

Alexandros G. Goules
Senior ICT-Manager (Athens)

Alexandros Goules has graduated from the department of Information Technology (TEI of Athens) with specialization in Databases. He has also an M.Sc. in “Management of Business, Innovation and Technology” (MBIT) from Athens Information Technology (AIT).

He has a long carrier in the ICT sector, mostly in the Private sector, in which he started working as a software developer (Unixfor S.A. & Intrasoft S.A.), then as an ERP-Specialist and Project Manager (Robert Bosch S.A.) and then as a Project & Product Manager (Intracom S.A.). He has also worked in Diedros S.A. as a Consultant, Pre-Sales and Project Manager, for projects related mostly to the Public Sector.

From March 2017 he joined CLC as an ICT Overall Project & Program Manager for the projects "Grant Agreement Technical Assistance on the Reform of the Greek Judicial System", in the Greek Ministry of Justice, Transparency & Human Rights.

From November 2016 he is also a Member of the Board of the Olympic Athletic Centre of Athens (OAKA) and from 2014 a member of the Committee for Tourism Development & Promotion of City of Athens, of the Municipality of Athens.