About

General counsel at Giuseppe Zanotti, the creator of the luxury fashion brand of the same name, Lucia Capotondi’s previous experience includes a mix of in-house and private practice positions. Her in-house experience is closely related to the establishment of new legal departments. In one of her previous roles at Robert Bosch, a company with over $2 billion turnover in Italy, Capotondi was given the task of setting up the legal office in Italy and has subsequently left the company with eight people in the department. Her work to create the legal function at Giuseppe Zanotti has also been very impressive as the company did not have fixed processes in place prior to her appointment. She has implemented new processes in a way that allowed for more efficient work between employees has been successful in fixing the company’s work on all procedures, contracts, investments and intellectual property. Having worked at Giuseppe Zanotti for one and a half years, Zanotti has already made her distinct mark on the company as a whole, primarily by means of establishing a positive attitude within the legal function. ‘It was imperative to for me to change attitudes, from interacting with law firms to understanding the need to be proactive, as well as understanding immediately the business and giving very direct solutions’, Capotondi says. ‘The bottom line is that you need to understand as much as possible, deal with the reality and give pragmatic replies, whilst being available at any time’. Perhaps the most impressive achievement in Capotondi’s in-house career has been to ensure that the legal team at Giuseppe Zanotti is perceived as an important strategic partner to the business, making management understand that there is an important added value to every lawyer. She explains that ‘being a business partner is not easy, but it is very important, as it means that you have gained trust and understanding that is necessary for you to proactively add value’.