Cem Davutoğlu left behind a hugely successful private practice career to join the in-house ranks of Akbank in March 2016. Prior to this, he spent over a decade with White & Case in Istanbul as a partner, owned and operated his own firm for six-and-a-half years after that and spent a further period as a partner with Bener Law Office of Istanbul after this. Davutoğlu explains what he took the role on to achieve, and how he has succeeded in this: ‘I have started the project finance and treasury transactions section in the legal department. Firstly, I set about hiring team members and developing internal procedures and policies for the section, as previously most of this work was done by outside legal counsel directly hired by the bank’s departments without involvement of the legal department. The current process is far better managed and supervised than it was previously handled’. Davutoğlu has achieved an awful lot in a relatively short space of time, and has worked hard to achieve a ‘direct working relationship with the senior management including executive board members’.