About

Heading up a mixed department of legal and non-legal employees, private banking specialist Mireille has seen numerous changes since she started working in Switzerland 20 years ago. Most notable is that departments have very often and very quickly become more diverse over time. Her current role at Banque Audi demands intimate knowledge of private banking law such as agreements, account opening documents, acquisitions and related work, these responsibilities are ‘incremental and are in line with constant increases in regulation’. Personal achievements in her career include agreements with large international financial institutions in Geneva and New York while also reorganising and restructuring private banking institutions, one project taking three years restructuring in accordance with new local legal requirements. Having such an internationally diverse remit, Mireille’s challenges are not only legal but cultural; having worked across US, Swiss, Italian, Swiss and Lebanese banks she says it is ‘difficult but necessary’ to ‘adapt your work to different cultures’ and so to get the best results there’s ‘always a need to adjust to each culture to understand’. Needless to say Mireille’s experience lends itself well to accurately summarising the differences between in-house and private practice, she notes that the job of legal counsel in a private bank is ‘very different to that of a lawyer in a law firm’ and there is a lot less ‘theoretical analysis, less reading and writing, but more action and application, although there are a lot more politics too!’