Team size: 11

Career Biography

Roula Khaled is the General Counsel and Head of Ethics and Compliance of Khazna Data Centres, a joint venture between G42, MGX and Silver Lake. She oversees legal strategy, corporate governance, compliance frameworks and high-value commercial transactions. She is also a board-facing executive and company secretary, responsible for stakeholder management and board reporting. Khaled has over 20 years of experience leading and advising on cross-border and domestic M&A transactions (including acquisitions of data centres and telecom operators), joint ventures, finance deals, restructuring matters and on a wide variety of corporate, commercial and strategic transactions in several jurisdictions including the Gulf Cooperation Council, Asia, Europe and Africa.

Before moving in-house, Khaled started her career as a private practice lawyer in Paris, Lebanon and the UAE. Her most recent roles were as a Regional Senior Legal Counsel at IBM, where she worked on technology and consulting deals (including GBS) in the UAE and KSA and as a Regional Senior Counsel at Majid Al Futtaim Ventures, where she handled the corporate, commercial, employment, IP and litigation matters, covering UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Lebanon and Egypt. Before that, she spent six years as a Legal Counsel Mergers and Acquisitions at Etisalat working on some of the biggest deals in the region, including the acquisition of Maroc Telecom, the sale of Zantel and Canar, and the merger of Etisalat Lanka with Hutch Lanka.

Khaled is a Lebanese-qualified lawyer. She has a Degree in Law from the Saint Joseph University in Beirut, an MA in Internal and International Business Law from the French affiliate of the Lebanese University (Filière Francophone de Droit), and a certificate in the Essentials of Business from the American University of Beirut.

Alongside her executive role, Khaled is a faculty member at the Institute for Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances and she regularly speaks on legal innovation, risk mitigation and corporate strategy at industry panels and legal forums.”

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

During my M&A legal counsel role at Etisalat, I worked on many strategic transactions including the divestments of Canar and Zantel, Etisalat’s subsidiaries in Sudan and Tanzania, (towers deals in Afghanistan, (merger of Hutch Lanka and Eti Lanka, Etisalat’s subsidiary in Sri Lanka, E-vision’s equity investment in Starz Play, and several equity funding rounds for iMENA). However, the particularly unique deal in my career until today will remain the acquisition by Etisalat of a major stake in Maroc Telecom (a €4.2 bn deal), including the fulfilment of some of the conditions precedent to the completion of the acquisition, from the consolidation of the Etisalat’s African assets under Maroc Telecom, to the reviewing of the mandatory tender offer’s prospectus (with regards to the floating shares in Maroc telecom), the implementation of the SPV structure, the funding flow structure and the conversion of the shareholders’ loans into capital.

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

They have to be a strategic thinker, a builder of high-performing teams, and a champion of ethical, inclusive, and commercially astute legal practice. Also, to have a strong business acumen, excellent communication and crisis management skills, problem solving skills, and be sound with fair judgement, empowering, adaptable and agile. They shall have a high attention to details, be process driven but tech savvy at the same time. Emotional Intelligence is crucial for the success of any modern in-house counsel so is his/her ability to be cross -cultural and a team player. A modern in-house counsel in a position of leadership should also have the back of the team, give them the platform to perform, room to breathe when they struggle and a reality check when needed.