Executive Director. Dr Susanne Nikoltchev took office as Executive Director of the European Audiovisual Observatory in July 2013. Prior thereto she was the Observatory's Head of Department for Legal Information and editor in chief of all its legal publications (since 1998). She has been a media, telecoms, international trade and EU competition lawyer associated with the American law firm of Covington & Burling (1995-1998). As a member of the bars of Germany and Washington D.C., she has worked in private practice in Germany, the United States and Belgium with particular exposure to audiovisual issues on the international and European level as well as on the national level. She obtained her first law degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1988, followed by masters degrees from the European University Institute in Florence (LL.M. in European and Comparative law, 1989) and the University of Michigan (LL.M. in US law, 1994) and her doctorate in law (comparative legal studies, thesis published in 1997) from the University of Trier (1996). She passed the second German state examination in law in Baden-Württemberg (1993) with distinction.