About

Walid Ali Khalil joined the Kuwait-based, US$1bn market capitalisation Mezzan Holding Co in 2006 as senior legal assistant, and has proved an indispensable resource for the company’s in-house legal function ever since. Promoted to group legal manager in 2014, he was instrumental in leading the listing and initial public offering of the company shares as well as all associated regulatory requirements. On this, Khalil says, ‘The IPO Project of Mezzan in 2014-2015 was a milestone in my career. It was not just a public offering of 30% of a company but involved the transformation of a 70 year-old family company into a public organisation. Through this project, we aligned 29 company subsidiaries’ legal structures to be compliant with corporate governance and transparency regulations’. Since then, he has advised the company on a number of eye-catching projects, including high-value litigations and a large-scale business restructuring, and now oversees all group legal operations of 29 company subsidiaries from the Kuwait head office. Khalil provides further details on the extremely diverse range of work he has assisted with: ‘As a group legal manager I deal with anything and everything from compliance with regulations of trading in shares and securities, shareholders general assemblies and corporate actions, employment and commercial work, advising HR, construction and general contracting, assisting with projects and litigation, to dealing with international suppliers on distributorships and agency agreements, marketing and intellectual property protection’.