About

Andrzej Kolwas comes from a private practice background before moving in-house, to PMI’s anti-illicit trade function, where he assumed the role of senior counsel for the EU region. While performing his role as EU senior counsel, he temporarily acted in a similar role in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Latin America regions as well as Canada. Assuming a regional role, in a complex environment he required significant expertise in intellectual property, litigation and commercial law. ‘This role taught me to prioritise, and appreciate differences in legal systems around the world, as my areas of responsibility were at one point in time almost global’, he says. During this time he was directly responsible for handling high profile criminal cases related to IP infringement. Eighteen months ago, he took on a cross-functional assignment to head a global team dealing with anti-illicit trade regulatory matters, and also became a member of PMI’s illicit trade prevention management team. He is particularly proud of his success at building bridges between law department and business functions, showing business colleagues that lawyers can be their partners and ‘not just approvers’, and vice versa showcasing that business functions deserve recognition and respect from lawyers, as these are the functions that shape the business environment, and operate under significant pressure. Kolwas has worked on building PMI’s external position on various topics and representing PMI externally, with one instance being last year’s International Bar Association’s panel in Sydney, Australia, alongside general counsel of Novartis’ and Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). On this experience he says, ‘this new role made me fully realise how complex the environment is outside the law department, and how lawyers should be mindful of what it means to operate under pressure, and in real life conditions’. While on the assignment, he followed and successfully completed an Executive MBA at IMD (International Institute for Management Development): ‘The EMBA journey, has been especially rewarding for me, and enabled me to develop my business instincts, and be a true partner to my colleagues on the business side, contributing way beyond legal advice’.