Since its foundation in 2025, GRÄFE Tax & Legal has established itself as a leading boutique consultancy for entrepreneurs, family offices and foundations in the German-speaking world. During the reporting period, the firm succeeded in recruiting renowned experts to advise on strategic wealth and business succession, as well as on family offices and foundations, whilst simultaneously developing and strengthening the existing team. In addition, key clients have been added in the area of family lines of large companies and single-family offices. This has enabled the firm to both expand the professional strength of its highly specialised team and significantly broaden its client base with major, high-profile clients.
Renowned leadership
Founder Dr Maren Gräfe is regarded as one of the leading experts in providing strategic advice to entrepreneurs and their families, high-net-worth individuals, family offices and foundations. The team, which specialises in tax, legal and strategic advice, provides comprehensive support to high-net-worth individuals and charitable organisations throughout the DACH region.
Experienced and dynamic advisory team
The 21-strong, dedicated and highly capable team draws on a wealth of experience. Team members come from both the advisory sector and the practical side of the business, such as financial administration and long-standing senior roles at family offices. They work in a highly team-oriented manner and see themselves as economic and strategic sparring partners for their clients. They regularly mediate in conflict situations and develop proposed solutions to resolve disputes. In doing so, GRÄFE Tax & Legal draws on in-house mediation expertise: the team includes staff with formal mediation training and extensive experience in mediating family and shareholder disputes.
In its highly specialised structuring consultancy, the interdisciplinary team combines expertise in both tax and legal matters, thereby creating a seamless connection. Furthermore, the founder and her team are committed to providing competent, ongoing tax advice for individuals and their investment and holding entities, which is closely integrated with the structuring process.
Digital and automated solutions are increasingly being used across all areas: for instance, the firm has recently introduced both a CRM and a project management tool, rolled out Legora as an AI-based platform for legal and tax work, and integrated digital and AI support into the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) process as well as into client case management. In doing so, this entrepreneurially minded unit does not rely on standard solutions, but employs bespoke tools and interfaces to achieve optimal results.
The firm supports its clients as a 360-degree sparring partner. In doing so, the team at GRÄFE Tax & Legal draws on the experience gained from many years of supporting high-net-worth individuals, their families and their investments. The firm’s advisory services are built on a high level of both technical and strategic expertise, as well as the dynamism of a young, digitally savvy team comprising generalists and specialist experts.
A wide range of services for families and family offices
The firm’s range of services includes the tax and legal planning, structuring and implementation of wealth and business succession, as well as the planning of structural changes to holding and corporate structures, support with corporate law matters, the establishment and management of family governance, and the drafting of family constitutions and advisory board solutions. In addition, the firm handles the resolution of family and shareholder disputes, as well as provision arrangements within a family context, including (testamentary) contingency provisions for inheritance or matrimonial property law measures for tax-optimised asset transfers between spouses.
Clients are also supported in all matters relating to tax compliance. This includes tax returns in both German and international contexts, reporting obligations, and withholding tax refund applications, including advice on tax and asset reporting. The taxation of complex capital investments both domestically and abroad is also a core area of our advisory work. We assist high-net-worth individuals and family offices in establishing an asset architecture and its corporate governance. Our advisory services are provided in close collaboration with strong interdisciplinary partners. More complex and international structures, such as (foreign) foundations and specialised fund solutions, are also part of our repertoire.
The firm’s particular areas of specialisation also include advising on private equity investments and providing guidance on the acquisition of private equity funds by family offices and high-net-worth individuals. The firm also supports clients in the purchase and sale of shareholdings, as well as in their tax and legal structuring. In doing so, the team works both domestically and internationally with a network of experienced M&A and private equity experts.
The partners at GRÄFE Tax & Legal
Founding partner Dr Maren Gräfe is a recognised expert in advising on tax and company law. Her advisory practice focuses on tax, legal and strategic asset structuring and succession planning, issues of family and corporate governance, as well as the establishment of professional asset and family office structures from legal, tax and economic perspectives, and investment taxation. She is a member of the supervisory board at Carl Hanser Verlag and a scientific advisor to the IVS Institute for Asset Structuring. Dr Maren Gräfe began her professional career at Flick Gocke Schaumburg and worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers between 2010 and 2019. She subsequently headed the ‘Entrepreneurial Families & Family Offices’ practice at BDO as a partner before co-founding the law firm gkn Gräfe Klümpen-Neusel, with offices in Munich and Düsseldorf.
Partner Ellen Ashauer-Moll has extensive experience in providing tax advice to high-net-worth individuals and family offices, and in the tax structuring of global investments. She has many years of experience in both day-to-day and tax planning advice for private individuals, asset management companies and family offices in both German and international contexts. In addition to the preparation of complex tax returns, she specialises in the tax treatment of investments at home and abroad, capital gains tax issues and investment tax law. She also advises internationally active investors on matters relating to moving to and from Germany. Another focus of her work lies in the digitalisation of commercial law and tax reporting for capital investments. Before joining gkn Gräfe Klümpen-Neusel, Ellen Ashauer-Moll spent 28 years at Rödl & Partner, where she was jointly responsible for the family offices and high-net-worth individuals practice.
Partner Stefanie Wagner advises on the legal, tax and commercial aspects of intergenerational wealth transfers and the (re)structuring of family businesses, and has extensive experience of advising on M&A transactions from both a legal and tax perspective. She began her career in 2008 in the private clients-focused tax team at Linklaters in Munich. She subsequently worked at a boutique firm specialising in private clients advice and, as Associate Partner, at Oppenhoff & Rädler in Munich, before joining gkn Gräfe Klümpen-Neusel in January 2024. On 1 January 2025, she moved from gkn to GRÄFE as a partner, together with the entire Munich team, as part of the firm’s reorganisation.
Andreas Wildgruber was promoted to partner from within the firm in April 2026. The experienced tax adviser specialises in advising high-net-worth individuals and family offices. Andreas Wildgruber holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration and gained professional experience at a Next-Ten firm and gkn Gräfe Klümpen-Neusel before joining the team at GRÄFE Tax & Legal.
Lawyer and tax adviser Dr Marcel Duplois joined the GRÄFE Tax & Legal team as a partner in June 2026. Dr Marcel Duplois was a member of POELLATH’s Frankfurt Private Clients team for many years. He primarily advises family businesses and companies on wealth structuring and corporate governance issues. His other areas of focus include national and international tax law, as well as advising foundations and non-profit organisations.
