Team size: 160

What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have recently been involved in?

In the last year, our Legal, External Affairs & Governance team has been instrumental in a number of major transactions. We’ve contracted Etihad Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, Uzbekistan Airways, ITA Airways and Air India for the Amadeus Altea Passenger Service System, including functionalities such as web booking, revenue management capabilities, merchandizing, data management and other servicing solutions. Our system already hosts other major airlines such as British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France, Southwest Airlines, Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Qantas and others. We also signed distribution-related agreements with Delta Air Lines, Avianca, Malaysia Airlines, Emirates and dozens of other airlines.

On the hotel side, our team negotiated a long-term agreement with Marriott International to deploy the Amadeus Central Reservations System to modernize Marriott’s reservation infrastructure in the coming years. We also signed Wyndham Hotels & Resorts for business intelligence solutions. In the airport sector, London Heathrow Airport contracted self-service check-in kiosks from ICM Airport Technics, an Amadeus Company. As for M&A, we acquired Kambr, a U.S. company specialized in revenue management solutions for airlines. Finally, in the ESG sphere we became the first travel company to join the Green Software Foundation, a non-profit organization created in 2021 by Accenture, Microsoft and others to develop green software to help reduce the tech sector’s greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030.

If you have worked in other countries, what are the main challenges unique to operating as an in-house counsel in your current location?

I’ve adopted a rather extreme version of WFA, splitting my time between Asia and Europe. Amadeus is based in Europe and all members of the Executive Committee, except for me, are based there. I’m very fortunate to have this flexibility to balance my family and work life, which would have been somewhat inconceivable without the changes brought upon by the pandemic. My own extended leadership team also benefits from this adaptive work environment, with some being based outside of Europe in such places as Singapore, Bangkok, Moscow, Dubai, Tel Aviv, Washington DC, Miami, Boston and others.

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values? Are you likely to reconsider what firms you work with based on this?

Many of Amadeus’ core values such as commitment, accountability, and excellence are shared by the top law firms we work with. Where some firms fall short is with regard to diversity. At last count we have more than 140 nationalities represented by our employees, and a majority of my senior leadership team is female. We’re often disappointed that the teams fielded by law firms to support us don’t mirror this, and we routinely press firms to improve.