Team size (optional): Five

First, can you please give us an idea of the sort of work your team has done recently (cases, transactions, projects)? Please mark anything confidential clearly.

I may summarize the top three highlights of my recent in-house career.

Firstly, we implemented a new litigation service structure in a financial institution, which also provided a legally secure decision mechanism for all business lines in the company.

Secondly, we established a new legal function, giving services to group companies while considering their different legal and operational requirements about their areas of activity.

Finally, we undertook the responsibilities of the compliance function, becoming responsible for adopting a compliance culture–essential in terms of the local and global regulatory environment.

By carrying out these types of tasks and projects, I had the chance to contribute to achieving the strategic goals of all our related companies. I also determined strategic topics to ensure the business continuity and establish a harmony with the other departments and global policies of the shareholders. Hence, we updated or put into place separate legal procedures regulating each area of our practice, such as corporate secretary activities, contract management, regulatory monitoring, litigations, compliance key controls etc.

We also included service levels for each area of activity considering the difficulties encountered while assessing the performance of legal staff. With the new structure, we also determined the principles to be respected while requesting a legal service and announced these principles within the company, in order to transform the request process into a more effective exchange among the departments and prevent continuing e-mail correspondences.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

As a support function, we are a part of cost generating departments included in operational expenses. Hence, each cost incurred in the department will be taken into account, while evaluating the profitability of the company. If we take one step beyond this, the allocation of each cost on the basis of a special business line or, better yet, a special project, makes a valuable contribution to this profitability calculation. Considering the fact that all VDF Group companies operate in partly or fully regulated sectors, we take an active part in all company projects and try to provide our legal opinions, and approvals where necessary, in a business-minded manner.