About

Sophie Moloney has had a decorated in-house career since moving on from the TMT practice of UK law firm Ashurst in 2003. After a seven year spell as a principal legal advisor to Sky, Europe’s leading entertainment company, Moloney moved to Abu Dhabi in 2011 as legal director under a secondment to support the launch and ongoing business of Sky News Arabia until 2013. She places this as among her all-time career highlights. ‘Being part of the team that launched Sky News Arabia was a remarkable achievement in a short space of time’, Moloney recalls. ‘We literally built the building to house all of the employees we recruited and from a legal and regulatory perspective; it was a literal first in terms of the licenses we needed to seek and then be bound by, without any local precedents to fall back on, and I adored this challenge’. She was seconded again by Sky to Abu Dhabi Media (ADM) where she led a project to re-launch ADM’s flagship news show, Oloum Al Dar, and assisted the managing director’s office on a series of special projects, including the transition of its pay TV business, the internal merger of two significant departments in TV and the development of a channel content strategy. Moloney also spent some time on secondment with twofour54, the commercial arm of the Media Zone Authority in Abu Dhabi. In 2015 OSN, the leading premium pay-TV platform in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), recruited Moloney as general counsel and company secretary responsible for the management and development of the legal department, ensuring adherence to the corporate governance structures and commercial contracts as well as all laws and regulations applicable to OSN’s evolving business throughout the MENA region. Having shone in the role, she was made chief legal officer after 12 months. Moloney is well recognised in the profession, having spoken at a number of conferences in the Middle East as well as being a prominent personality in the fight against the growing rates of piracy as she seeks to highlight the existential threat of content theft to the creative industry as a whole. Moloney describes how she has successfully developed the team to be an integral part of the company: ‘I am a big believer in the power of the team and that, to be a part of a team, you have to be a team player both looking in within legal and also outside to the business. Being open and approachable are key attributes I have looked to embody. And I am in constant dialogue with our CEO and the wider executive team which helps sets the tone for others to see the importance of this integration into our key decision-making’.