Team size: 23

What are the most significant cases, projects and/or transactions that you and/or your legal team have recently been involved in?

As General Counsel of a publicly regulated financial institution, our legal team has been deeply engaged in a range of strategic initiatives that reflect the evolving regulatory and operational landscape. These include supporting enterprise-wide governance enhancements, advising on complex financial transactions, and guiding the institution through regulatory examinations and supervisory dialogues. We’ve also played a key role in legal risk assessments tied to emerging technologies and digital banking platforms, ensuring alignment with applicable laws and industry standards. Our work consistently aims to reinforce the institution’s legal posture while enabling innovation and growth.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

In times of uncertainty – whether driven by economic volatility, regulatory change, or operational disruption – our legal function activates a structured response framework. This includes rapid legal risk assessments, close coordination with executive leadership and control functions, and agile contract and policy reviews. We emphasise clear communication, regulatory engagement, and scenario planning to anticipate potential legal exposures. Our goal is to ensure continuity of compliance and governance while supporting the institution’s strategic and operational resilience.

What strategies do you employ to ensure the successful digital transformation of a legal department while maintaining compliance with your country’s data protection laws?

Digital transformation within the legal function is approached with a dual focus: operational efficiency and data integrity. We evaluate legal tech solutions through a rigorous lens of privacy, security, and jurisdictional compliance. This includes vetting vendors for adherence to local data protection laws and ensuring that platforms used for document management, e-discovery, and contract lifecycle automation meet confidentiality and retention standards. Training and change management are also key components, ensuring that our team adapts to new tools while upholding legal and ethical obligations.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on that you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?

One notable trend across the financial services sector is the increasing complexity of consumer-targeted fraud schemes. These developments are prompting legal teams to work more closely with compliance and risk functions to strengthen customer protections, clarify liability frameworks, and support educational efforts aimed at fraud prevention. While not unique to any one institution, this issue underscores the importance of legal agility and cross-functional coordination in safeguarding both customers and institutional integrity.

We’re also observing a broader institutional shift toward the use of AI and automation to drive operational efficiency. Across various functions – including compliance, customer service, and internal operations – AI tools are being deployed to streamline processes, enhance decision-making, and improve responsiveness. From a legal standpoint, this requires careful oversight to ensure that these technologies are implemented in a way that aligns with regulatory standards, preserves data integrity, and maintains transparency.

Finally, we remain focused on developments in local regulatory frameworks – especially those impacting consumer protection, banking operations, and financial crime compliance – as these continue to shape how legal teams support institutional resilience and strategic planning.