How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure organisational resilience?

In an insurance group operating within a highly regulated and fast-changing environment, I approach crisis and instability as BAU by treating legal foresight as part of business planning rather than as a reactive function. My legal background, combined with an MBA (AUEB), helps me identify legal and regulatory risk early, translate it into clear commercial options for management, and ensure the business can move quickly whilst remaining compliant. During the Group’s integration into the Piraeus Bank Group, I worked closely with our CEO, our Executive Committee, external counsel, and Piraeus management and legal teams to structure the legal workstreams, manage indemnity and litigation exposure, and keep strategic projects on track. Aligning legal strategy with business strategy, for me, means being present at the point where decisions are made — as an Executive Committee member and legal adviser to the Board and business units — so that resilience is built into the transaction, not added afterwards.

What is the biggest shift you have seen in the role of General Counsel in the past five years, and how do you see it evolving further?

The GC has moved from gatekeeper to co-author of strategy. Five years ago, legal was consulted once a direction had been chosen; today we are expected to shape the direction itself — on regulatory strategy (Solvency II, IDD/POG, GDPR), on M&A and distribution models, and on governance. The role increasingly demands strong management and leadership skills: communicating complex legal risk in plain commercial language to C-level decision-makers, leading and developing a sizeable in-house team, and coordinating external counsel in Greece and abroad. My MBA has been valuable in bridging the legal and business perspectives and in running the function with a commercial mindset. I expect this to deepen, with GCs assuming ownership of enterprise-wide risk and playing a central role in how strategy is shaped.

How do you balance being a legal risk manager with being a strategic business enabler, and where do you see the biggest tensions?

The tension is real: the same instinct that protects the company can slow it down. My approach is to be clear about what constitutes a genuine legal red line and what is a manageable, documented risk that the business is entitled to take with appropriate safeguards. Where a product or transaction raises regulatory or legal risks, I focus on robust documentation and reasoned analysis, so that commercial decisions are defensible rather than blocked. Enabling the business does not mean lowering standards; it means providing management with well-founded options and the confidence to choose.

I would, of course, be happy to discuss any of the above by telephone. Please let me know if you require any further information.