Andreas Baumgartner

Andreas Baumgartner is co-founder and CEO of The Metis Institute, an advisory focused on courts, regulation and governance design for special economic zones and autonomous cities. He holds doctorates from the University of Vienna, spent around nine years at McKinsey & Company, led government advisory work at the Office of Tony Blair, and was Executive Director of the Dispute Resolution Authority at the Dubai International Financial Centre.

The Metis Institute advises governments, zones and industries on the machinery most new jurisdictions discover late: courts that people trust, regulators competent enough to be worth having, and dispute resolution that works when the parties come from different legal traditions. It was set up by judges, court administrators and academics rather than by consultants.

That work follows directly from his time in Dubai. The DIFC built a common-law court and arbitration system inside a civil-law country, and it remains the closest thing the field has to a proven template for a zone that needs a legal order of its own. He is also deputy chief executive of Tipolis, the developer of new jurisdictions.