Catherine Karatzas is a graduate of the Law School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens with an LLM from Columbia University. She is a member of the Athens and the New York Bar. She worked with Shearman & Sterling in New York City from 1988 to 1992, when she joined Karatzas & Partners (then Karatzas Law Office). She has been the Managing Partner at Karatzas & Partners since 1996. Karatzas & Partners has been consistently ranked as Tier 1 Greek law firm by international legal directories such as Chambers & Partners, Legal500 and IFLR. She has always been in the forefront of legal developments and has participated and continues to participate in some of the most significant transactions for Greek economy and often for Greek national life. Recent and significant examples include the acquisition of the first Greek unicorn startup, the first Greek Green bond, the listing of the first shipping bond, the first sustainability linked bonds and many prominent securitization NPL transactions with a value of more than €25 billion. Catherine Karatzas was the first and remains the only female Managing Partner of a top Greek law firm. She has received the Pan-European award in the category of financial regulation in the International Financial Law Review Europe Women in Business Law awards in 2015. She is routinely ranked as a top and highly regarded lawyer by all major leading directories, named as one IFLR1000 Woman Leader - EMEA in 2020 and 2021 and included in The Legal 500’s Hall of Fame since 2018. She is also a member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE). She is married and has three children. She is fluent in English, French and Italian.