Arminé Ekmektchian has achieved a great deal in a relatively short space of time, making her among the brightest rising stars currently operating in the French in-house legal community. Discovering aviation law while studying for a post-graduate degree (an event that she describes as ‘a revelation’), Ekmektchian began her professional career at Aigle Azur where she remains to this day.

Despite only starting as an intern, within two years of being at the company Ekmektchian had ‘earned [her] CEOs trust and confidence’ and was promoted to the role of head of legal in 2017. Her rapid rise to the top, in her opinion, can be accounted to her ‘clear sense of emergency management in a very versatile set of areas’, and she mentions a number of chapters in her career that have informed her professional growth in this area.

A pressing need to downsize the legal team upon her joining meant having to ‘reorganise the legal department and the way we should work by putting in place new procedures’, including ‘attaching the department directly to the CEO’. As well as this, she has been involved in a number of high value transactions with the company, including the $28m sale of one of the company’s aircrafts and the lease agreements for the two wide-body A330-200s that are set to begin long-haul flights in April 2018; this expansion of the company’s offering to its customers is set to open a new and exciting chapter in Aigle Azur’s journey.