About

Paolo Quaini’s legal education at Università degli Studi di Genova is complemented by commercial courses completed at Bocconi University in Milan and London Business School, adding a unique business perspective to his understanding of legal issues. His first position was with the law firm Carbone & D’Angelo based in Genoa and he spent the next three years in private practice, before moving in-house to the steelmaker Techint in 1998. After spending two years there, Quaini set up and ran his own legal practice for two years, before moving back to Techint for his first leadership position. Perhaps the highlight of Quaini’s career has been during his third in-house role at the Italian food company Parmalat, the multinational Italian dairy and food corporation. He contributed to the rescue and turnaround of Parmalat, the largest bankruptcy case ever in Europe, with his contribution of the legal function considered imperative to the tackling of this big challenge. Quaini eventually took up his current position of group general counsel at the apparel and fashion company OTB after a brief one year spell at Cementir Holdings. His time at OTB has been defined by his contribution to the complete overhaul of the governance function within the group. In addition, he has impressed with his achievement to create a different atmosphere within his team that now resembles a ‘professional family’, along with his efforts to redistribute roles and responsibilities between the corporate legal function and business unit legal functions.