What are the most significant cases, projects, or transactions that you and your legal team have recently been involved in?

A challenging case we’ve been involved in was managing the consequences of the attack on Iran on 28 February 2026 for our clients that were abroad at that time, either travelling in the Middle East or elsewhere further east in Asia. Notably, as a result of the attack, the airspace of several countries in the region was closed, and so were the international airports. Consequently, a significant number of flights were cancelled, including flights from (and to) a number of Asian destinations, though they had nothing to do with the attack. Some of those countries in the Middle East are an essential hub for air transportation of European travellers headed eastwards as much as for those heading back to Europe.

In case of flight disruption, on the one hand, tour operators have an obligation under Italian law to ensure that clients come back home safely (which marks one of the most relevant features of organised travels as opposed to independent ones). On the other hand, airlines have obligations in terms of re-protecting passengers. However, the impact of the attack was so extensive that the legal and contractual rules that would normally apply to flight disruptions were severely challenged, and we had to come up with new and unprecedented approaches, discuss them quickly with airlines companies as much as with insurance companies, to prioritise in any event the safety of our clients while managing extra costs.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

I have developed a risk-based approach to legal matters over the years, also thanks to my background as a risk manager. Interestingly, an increasing number of areas of the law have themselves been updated to a risk-based approach (let’s think about data protection rules, to name just one). This to me signals an ongoing evolution of the legal system: as the variables accounting for human behaviour are growingly unpredictable and therefore complex, the boundaries of how legal rules are written and applied have been pushed further. Legal rules have been shifting from being a command of a specific action/prohibition backed by sanctions towards expressing an obligation for certain subjects to assess the context and act accordingly to ensure protection of particular legal interests. The legal systems now seem to be aiming at reconciling prioritisation of potentially conflicting legal interests under specific circumstances, rather than in absolute and general terms. From my end and in my profession, I believe that resilience for any organisation stems from, among other things, the ability to perform this exercise with awareness and a mitigated risk appetite.

General counsel often speak of the need to be strategic to reach the pinnacle of the profession. What does being strategic mean to you?

Connecting dots and gaining the bigger picture, avoid at all costs the “working in silos” temptation, promoting horizontal exchange and communication, and always look for the opportunity rather than the constraint in any set of rules.

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

When working as a legal adviser to the Bahraini Telecommunications Authority, I was among other things responsible for composing regulations applicable to Bahraini citizens and residents, mostly aiming at aligning certain domestic rules to EU best practices. However, while those EU best practices had flourished gradually in the context of liberal democracies based on certain fundamental principles which, over the decades, had produced a complex network of checks and balances that reflect its history, beliefs, and objectives, of course Bahrain’s legal system, fundamental principles, and objectives are quite different, and have themselves developed in an environment driven by its own peculiar set of rules. Therefore, I had to learn how to work my way through similarities and differences, at times stretching complex concepts aiming at enabling an innovative approach, with the view to achieving a sustainable and manageable balance between what . It was one of the greatest and coolest challenges in my career!

What do you think are the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel to possess?

Owning (and reclaiming) their management role as opposed to a merely technical one. There may be many interpretations of the GC role, however I believe that the value lies in complementing the legal technical expertise of external counsel with the ability to think out of the box, partner-up with the business and leverage that technical expertise to design creative solutions to business problems. A legal problem for a GC should be first and foremost a business one.