Team size: 4

What are the key projects you have been involved in over the past twelve months?

Over the past year I have led the legal function across TAWAL’s European platform, covering the Luxembourg holding company and the operating entities in Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia. On 1 July 2026, I was also appointed as the group’s data protection officer for Europe, and I advise the leadership on its legal and regulatory strategy.

Since TAWAL entered the European market in August 2023, I have built the legal function from the ground up, recruiting local counsel in each jurisdiction and appointing external advisers and supporting the business from start-up to full operations. I put in place the corporate governance framework, running board meetings and general assemblies and coordinating international tax compliance. I also lead the group’s engagement with the European Commission on telecommunications and digital matters.

I also closed a series of major cross-border agreements, part of a wider restructuring of the tower business across the three countries and built a data protection and cybersecurity compliance programme from scratch, aligned to NIS2 and the GDPR. I advised on the acquisition of other tower companies as the group expanded.

Can you describe an instance where your legal advice directly influenced business strategy or commercial objectives?

A clear example concerns the pricing mechanism in our services agreements, which was not being applied in accordance with its terms in any of the three countries. The practice that had taken hold was a legacy of common ownership, when the tower business and the telecommunications operator formed part of a single group. Following their separation, prices had continued to be set on the basis of custom rather than the true construction of the agreements.

I carried out a detailed review and reached what I considered the correct interpretation of these complex provisions, then presented it to our operational teams. This allowed the group to remedy several material operational matters and, as a direct result, to recover and increase revenue to which it was entitled under its contracts.

I then led the discussions with the operators and negotiated directly with opposing counsel, so that they too accepted the proper reading of the pricing provisions. In parallel, I engaged closely with the regulators to explain the contractual basis for the resulting adjustment. This is a clear case of legal analysis delivering a direct commercial result, placing the group’s pricing on a defensible footing and strengthening its standing with both operators and regulators.

Organisations are facing increasing regulation across jurisdictions. How do you embed compliance across the business?

Operating across Luxembourg, UAE, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia means managing a dense and shifting regulatory landscape, from the GDPR and NIS2 to sector-specific telecommunications rules and the Gigabit Infrastructure Act. I embed compliance by keeping it practical: clear policies and processes adapted to each jurisdiction, close partnership with trusted local counsel and a governance and risk platform giving visibility across all entities. I have also enrolled every member of my team in tailored Coursera courses, so that each can strengthen the areas where they most need to develop. Proximity matters just as much, both to local counsel and to the business, and I sit close to operational decisions so that compliance is built in early rather than bolted on afterwards.

What key trends should in-house counsel be monitoring over the coming months?

Two trends stand out. The first is pay transparency. The European Union Pay Transparency Directive introduces significant new obligations on pay structures and reporting, and preparing the business to meet them in good time will require sustained attention. The second is artificial intelligence. Its responsible adoption within legal teams is moving from experiment to expectation, and it is now accompanied by regulation of its use, both at European level through the AI Act and increasingly at national level, including recent measures in Croatia. Counsel will need to understand not only how to use these tools well, but also how to use them lawfully. Beyond Europe, regulation is also increasing in the Middle East, which makes compliance more demanding for a group that must satisfy different sets of rules at once. The counsel who combine deep regulatory literacy with commercial judgement, and who are willing to adopt new tools well, will be best placed to add value.