International
Advisory Board
Vienna
University of Vienna
Juridicum
Mary Walker
International Advisory Board - Co-chair
Mary Walker OAM has been at the forefront of ADR in Australia for the last 33 years. During this period, as a member of an independent Bar, Mary has arbitrated, mediated, facilitated, and negotiated across jurisdictions and substantive legal areas, multi-party complex disputes including class actions, designed dispute resolution systems, and provided expert appraisal and ombudsman services in respect to thousands of disputes referred by solicitors, industry and government bodies and corporations both domestic and international. Mary is a multi-award-winning mediator and has mediated well over 7,000 matters. She is a member of many mediation panels, including superior court panels in Australia and leading panels globally. Mary was Co-Chair of the International Bar Association Mediation Committee in 2020 – 2021 and Co-Chair of the IBA Mediation Committee Advisory Board (2022). Mary is Chair of the Law Council of Australia International Law Section, Co-Chair of the International Arbitration Committee, and Chair of the Federal Litigation and Dispute Resolution ADR Committee. She has been a member of many Taskforces on mediation and ADR. She is a renowned legal practitioner who contributes to domestic and international policy formation, education, and training.
Johannes P Willheim
International Advisory Board - Co-Chair
Johannes P. Willheim is an internationally trained disputes lawyer, mediator and professional negotiator. He is a partner of the Global Disputes Practice of Jones Day which provides him with the opportunity to advise clients around the globe in how to best prevent, manage and resolve disputes and, if need be, to represent and defend their interests in formalized (arbitration, court or mediation) proceedings. In addition to his work in private practice, Johannes is frequently appointed as an arbitrator and independent expert in DIS, ICC, VIAC, and other institutional as well as ad hoc arbitration proceedings. He also assists parties in the consensual resolution of business disputes either as mediator or professional negotiator. Johannes is dedicated to developing and applying a holistic and systematic approach to disputes management. His approach is based on the presumption that disputes are a normal part of any business, like financing, innovation or HR. As a consequence, effective and efficient prevention, management and resolution of disputes requires not only actual dispute resolution tools and processes (e.g. court or arbitration proceedings and various ADR methods) but a more general body of disputes management know-how and tools, i.e. a “School of Disputes Management”, focused on the development of standardized and individual solutions for managing disputes. Assisting clients in the development of such solutions has become an important part of Johannes’ work. Johannes has published extensively on various subjects relating to disputes resolution. He lectures on international arbitration in leading academic programs around the globe and is a frequent speaker at legal and industry conferences.
Geoff Sharp
International Advisory Board
Geoff is a seasoned international mediator with mediation Chambers in Singapore, London, and New Zealand. He focuses on cross-border mediations online and in-person and brings a deep-rooted understanding of conflict to disputes to give them the energy they often lack amid extended litigation or arbitration. He holds senior posts in the mediation community including the United Nations International Advisory Board with oversight of the UN’s Global Mediation Panel and Ambassador for the Singapore International Mediation Centre. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators, a grouping of the world’s most recognised commercial mediators.
Michael McIlwrath
International Advisory Board
Michael is the founder and CEO of MDisputes Srl, a company providing in-house counsel services for resolving and managing disputes. Previously, he spent over 22 years as a lead in-house litigation counsel, most recently as Vice President of Litigation of Baker Hughes Company, and before that at GE Oil & Gas. Michael is Chair of the ICC’s Governing Body for Dispute Resolution Services and an adjunct professor at Bocconi School of Law in Milan. He was the Chair of the Global Pound Conference in 2016-17 and was a Board Member and past president of the International Mediation Institute (IMI) from 2008 to 2020. In 2017, Arbitral Women recognized Michael as a Champion of Change. He lives in Florence, Italy. Michael is the co-author of two textbooks Negotiating International Commercial Contracts: Practical Exercises (2020 Eleven Publishing) and International Mediation and Arbitration: A Practical Guide (Kluwer 2010), and numerous articles about international mediation and arbitration. He is a regular contributor to the Kluwer Arbitration Blog.
Dima Alexandrova
International Advisory Board
Dima is a Bulgarian-qualified lawyer and mediator with a specialism in Commercial Law and Dispute Resolution developing her own practice under the brand name AdimaLaw. She gained her fundamental legal training at Sofia University and further specialized at King’s College London and the University of Lorraine, France. Dima is a mediation and negotiation trainer at the Professional Association of Mediators in Bulgaria and conducts a mediation workshop at Sofia University. She has been a participant in the ICC Mediation Competition herself, after which she became a coach for both ICC and IBA-VIAC Competitions, and finally she was an expert-assessor. Under her guidance Sofia University won IBA-VIAC CDRC back in 2016 and second prize at ICC in 2021, and King’s College London won third prize at IBA-VIAC CDRC. Furthermore, Dima has been involved with the Vis Moot as an arbitrator since 2016. She won the national prize for Mediator of the Year in Bulgaria in 2021
Wendy Versteeg
International Advisory Board
Wendy practices globally as a certified and registered (commercial) mediator and trainer in Negotiation and Dispute Resolution at her company WV-Mediation. She develops, lectures, and teaches many courses on Negotiation, Alternative Dispute Resolution, and Mediation at the Faculty of Law and the Honours Academy of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Based in The Hague and Vienna, she provides her training, mediation, and stakeholder management services to government agencies, companies, NGOs, and universities in Europe, the US, the Caribbean, and Asia. She is also one of the founders and the Secretary of The Mutual Gains Netwerk in the Netherlands where consensual dispute professionals meet.
