About

Özge Gülşen-Kösem, senior legal counsel, is the head of the legal and compliance department at Mondelēz International Turkey and has been working at the company for almost eight years. In the department she is supported by senior legal specialist Ege Ergin, another member of the team. As the legal and compliance department, the team aims to provide support to all functions within the company with utmost care and diligence in mainly legal aspects as well as compliance matters. Within Mondelēz International, the Turkey unit is located in the Eastern Europe (EE) cluster composed of Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and Euro-Asian countries within the European Union. As the head of legal for Turkey and Georgia, Gülşen-Kösem works directly with the senior management of both countries in addition to other functions in terms of legal questions such as review of agreements, risk management, marketing and data privacy. Ergin, an expert in labour and commercial laws, also distinguishes herself in terms of her corporate secretary and litigation work. One of the most significant projects the team dealt with recently was moving the head office of Mondelēz International Turkey from Kocaeli to Istanbul’s city centre. The project involved both the sale of the administration building in Kocaeli and moving employees working in category and commercial teams to İstanbul. The legal department, provided legal consultancy in each step of the project, in terms of real estate law, contract law and corporate law. Another significant project they have worked on is the new contract review policy which is being implemented in all Mondelēz group companies globally for the purposes of unifying all contracts to be used in each group company, and as such the team have been working on the adaptation of all standard contracts in Turkish in accordance with Turkish law. Gülşen-Kösem highlights the team ethos saying, ‘we keep it simple and act like owners. These two values feed our corporate rules and moves in where we need to interpret a case or question. One question can be answered in many ways by different lawyers. As the legal department, we seek to be an assurance function within the company and be consistent in terms of our opinions and guidance. We first understand the need of the business, analyse legal risks and share possible solutions if there are any. We aim to be a partner to the business instead of being one more bureaucratic step to have the job done’.