The Los Angeles Warburg Chapter was launched in April 2016. Since then, the LA Warburg Chapter has held numerous high-level discussions. Previous speakers include Dr. Stormy-Annika Mildner, Executive Director of Aspen Institute Germany; Dr. Cornelius Adebahr, Political Analyst and Nonresident Fellow at Carnegie Europe; Peter Beyer, Member of the German Bundestag (CDU); Sigmar Gabriel, Former Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister and Chairman of Atlantik-Brücke; Ambassador John B. Emerson, Chairman of the ACG and former U.S. Ambassador to Germany; and Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ben Hodges.
About the Chapter Co-Directors
Johannes Masserer
Executive Director, Los Angeles
Association for Corporate Growth
jmasserer@acg.org
Johannes Masserer is passionate about connecting people in meaningful ways. As the Executive Director of ACG Los Angeles, the premier M&A dealmaking community, he leads and serves a group of over 600 dedicated middle-market professionals. ACG Los Angeles consists of approximately 25% investment bankers, 35% private equity professionals, and 40% transactional advisors, all focused on driving growth in the global middle market M&A dealmaking community.
Previously, Johannes managed membership and member relations at Jonathan Club, one of Southern California’s largest and most prominent private social clubs. He also worked at United Way of Greater Los Angeles and its Tocqueville Society, as well as Patina Restaurant Group, where he led the Primetime EMMYS Governors Ball. He began his career at three Ritz-Carlton Hotels, starting in New Orleans and later moving to California after Hurricane Katrina.
Johannes has always been involved in various community, cultural, and civic organizations. He has held leadership roles in the Los Angeles Warburg Chapter of the American Council on Germany (New York) and continues to volunteer as the Southern California liaison. He is a founding board member of United Way Germany (Berlin) and has served on several other nonprofit boards, including the American Red Cross (Los Angeles Region), Pasadena Museum of History, and Rotary Club of Los Angeles (LA5), where he remains an active member.
Johannes earned degrees from the University of Notre Dame (Mendoza), where he was part of the varsity fencing team that won the NCAA National Championship twice, and Claremont Graduate University (Drucker). He is married to his college sweetheart, Amy, an Educational Therapist, and they reside in Pasadena in the San Gabriel Valley of Greater Los Angeles with their young sons.
Nicolai M. Schwarz-Gondek
Partner
Sidley Austin LLP
Nicolai M. Schwarz-Gondek is a partner in the Century City office of Sidley Austin LLP where his practice focuses on private equity, mergers and acquisitions, and other complex corporate transactions. Nicolai regularly represents private equity sponsors, family offices and other institutional investors in connection with mergers, stock and asset acquisitions and divestitures, and leveraged and management buyouts. He also advises target and acquiring companies (including the portfolio companies of private equity firms) on a broad range of merger and acquisition transactions.
Before joining Sidley Austin LLP, Nicolai was a partner in the Private Equity and M&A practice groups of O’Melveny & Myers LLP in Century City. Prior thereto, he was a shareholder in the Corporate practice group of Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, P.C. in Santa Monica and practiced in the Corporate Department of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in Los Angeles and in the Mergers and Acquisitions and Public Company Advisory groups of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in New York.
A native of Germany, Nicolai holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of Southern California and received a Doctor Iuris (PhD equivalent), summa cum laude, from the University of Augsburg with a doctoral thesis on German tax law. Nicolai is also a graduate of Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, where he completed his First State Examination (JD equivalent) and obtained his Diplom-Jurist (Univ.), and spent one year as a visiting scholar at the University of Geneva in Switzerland with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service.
In addition to his practice, Nicolai is a lecturer in law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and serves as Co-Director of the Los Angeles Warburg Chapter of the American Council on Germany.
