Deutsche Bank Venture Capital’s former CVC head, Gil Perez, will join law firm Freshfields in April as its California-based chief innovation officer.

Gil Perez

Gil Perez has departed from his head of corporate venture capital role at German financial services firm Deutsche Bank and is set to join UK law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer as global chief innovation officer in April this year.

Perez will lead Freshfields’s innovation initiatives from its Silicon Valley office. He will help the firm seek out innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence for the legal industry.

Perez spent more than four years at Deutsche Bank, most recently as chief innovation officer. He helped the bank adopt public cloud, generative AI and machine learning technologies and oversaw its Deutsche Bank Venture Capital subsidiary.

Before joining Deutsche Bank, Perez spent 25 years in various leadership positions in innovation and technology transformation in Europe, including at software producer SAP and several enterprise technology startups.

“As organisations move quickly to maximise the opportunities borne from great innovation, and with the recent advancements of gen AI, the legal profession is destined to profoundly change in the coming years and Freshfields has the clear ambition and intent to transform the way lawyers and clients interact by leading the industry,” Perez said in a statement.

Edison Fu

Edison Fu is a reporter and Asia liaison at Global Corporate Venturing.