Legal and external affairs director | Vodafone Romania
Livia Dumitrescu
Legal and external affairs director | Vodafone Romania
Vodafone Romania’s now finalised acquisition of UPC Romania, announced on 1 August 2019, following the European Commission’s approval of Vodafone Group’s acquisition of Liberty Global’s operations in Romania, Germany, Czech Republic and Hungary in an €18.4bn transaction.
The ongoing merger by absorption of UPC Romania into Vodafone Romania. In 2018 the combined turnover of the two companies was nearly L4.5bn, out of which Vodafone’s share was L3.81bn.
The creation – by way of a demerger – of a new company which will comprise Vodafone Romania’s tower infrastructure and which will be part of a new organisation (TowerCo) to be set up at European level, which in turn will comprise Vodafone Group’s European tower infrastructure. This will be Europe’s largest tower company, with a dedicated management team, 61,700 towers in 10 markets with potential proportionate EBITDA of around €900m. Preparations are underway for a variety of monetisation alternatives, to be executed during the next 18 months, including a potential IPO.
The ongoing completion of all conditions for the occurrence of the effective date of a wholesale agreement of great value, and with a significant impact on business.
An in-house lawyer with inadequate “soft skills” or lacking in essential personal attributes will be perceived as dogmatic and will therefore be rather ineffective. In my view, the most important soft skills are the ability to explain in plain language, whether verbally or in writing, the intricacies of a legal argument; the discipline to “spot the issues” before giving any advice; and the talent to persuade using less rather than more of what they know so that one does not parade knowledge whilst still educating the audience, especially in the legal reasoning behind the conclusion in a legal advice piece.
There are also a few personal attributes, which all require a constant and consistent investment of time and an honest analysis as to the degree in which one possesses them: Emotional and social intelligence, humbleness, personal and professional ethics, interest in people and a caring attitude towards others, whether colleagues or the communities in which the business operates.
I believe that a company should hire for attitude and character, and train for skills. If one looks into the reasons for firing people, it becomes clear that in most cases people are fired for attitude or character flaws and not because of lack of skills or knowledge, which are partly also the responsibility of an employer to build. So, when I hire a new recruit I exercise my mind and imagination trying to identify the reasons why, in the future, I might possibly need to fire the new recruit.
My reply to your question is rather a reply to “what you do not want to see in a potential new hire” because I know for sure what I would not accept in a candidate – if I can spot it of course. A straightforward answer to your question would be that I would look for qualities that are enduring [such as] integrity, interest in the profession, desire to excel at least in one way, perseverance, team spirit – in short, good character and good attitude.
Unexpected good things might and will happen to you. Romania offers to a lawyer one of the most interesting legal and regulatory landscapes where nearly any new matter will need a personalised approach, even if you think you’ve seen and done it all before. This is your chance to learn to deal with ambiguity and mature.
A law firm needs to think alongside me on how to solve the challenges faced by the company I work for. I expect outside counsel to understand our business and to want to learn about our development strategy and the risks that might affect the achievement of our business objectives.
The worst thing I could hear would be “we are just lawyers”. When I hear this I often ask – “but you run a business, right? You run your law firm/practice”. No lawyer is “just a lawyer”, and we all benefit if we refuse this label when applied by others, and preferably not voluntarily adopt it for ourselves.
In addition I would like law firms to not take the relationship for granted if it has existed for a few years or, if it is new, not to expect that it would offer all its advantages in the first year. In short, staying power.
FOCUS ON… The POLYMATH
Someone leading a legal department in our time could be expected simultaneously to move seamlessly among providing classic legal advice – investigating compliance breaches, contributing data privacy designs to new processes, embedding ethics and integrity into the organisation, awareness of regulatory requirements, constant dialogue with relevant authorities, engaging with communities, universities and other stakeholders, contributing expertise and time to charitable endeavours – and to sometimes combine all these with strategic corporate security and resilience activities, or with advocacy and representation of the company in society.
That is why I like to believe that “general counsel” has evolved into more than a title to express a need of businesses for a role which could be best described as that of a polymath of the contemporary business world.
Assuming proper resources are allocated and adequate, mostly qualitative, metrics to measure performance are applied, such a role has the potential of being enriching and rewarding for both the company and the individual performing it as it works like a medium for cross-pollination. The general counsel’s role as an advisor and counsel to the business becomes more general, in the sense of becoming multi-disciplinary. What a wonderful evolution for a role not until long ago considered rather conservative!
