Nathalie Delaere – GC Powerlist
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Benelux 2019

Financials

Nathalie Delaere

Legal and tax director | Belfius Bank

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Benelux 2019

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Nathalie Delaere

Legal and tax director | Belfius Bank

About

After nine years in Tier 1 law firms, Nathalie Delaere joined the Belfius Group in 2004, first as a tax expert and as of 2009 as a tax director and since 2016 taking on the role of legal and tax director. In 2016, Belfius took the decision to centralise all legal and tax matters of the company within one department. ‘In this context, Belfius’ management gave me its confidence and entrusted me with the task to organise, shape and bring colours to this newly merged department’, says Delaere. Over the years she has transformed into a strategic and innovative business partner and as a consequence of the centralisation activity, the legal and tax department has benefitted from having an impact on the entire business, from the typical banking activity of a universal bank to the relationship with all stakeholders. ‘The central position of our department within the company allows the legal and tax teams to actively contribute to the definition of Belfius’ strategy and be a business partner with added value’, says Delaere. One of the highlights of her in-house career has been to have the opportunity to introduce a positive, digital and focused mind-set and to enhance a comprehensive approach to the work organisation and collaboration within the legal and tax department. ‘I am driven by the empowerment of the teams and I push the legal and tax counsels to take responsibilities, to be independent, to be engaged and to bring the best out of themselves’, explains Delaere. Amongst her most key transactions, her work on the 2018 Belfius initial public offering-project, which according to the national press, ‘held the country in suspense’, and was an IPO that could have been one of the largest IPO of a financial institution in the EMEA region of the last decade. Other transactions and projects of large importance she has been involved in include the launch of innovative payments products as well as the development of the bank-insurance business of the future. Delaere has also been at the forefront of implementing a new way of working in the relationship with law firms and to this end Belfius has developed technology to work in cohesion with external lawyers to achieve favourable outcomes in litigation processes. In this context, Belfius develops and implements digital tools resulting in the reduction and optimisation of operational work, allowing in-house and external lawyers to devote themselves entirely to the skills in which they excel. The evolution and digitalisation of the financial sector is an opportunity to reinvent the legal department using legal technology as a leverage.

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