Team size: Three

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

I started working at Cleopatra Ink in 2022, and the company sits in an extremely niche commercial field. Cleopatra Ink is one of the only companies in the world and the first to work institutionally in the tattoo and piercing sector. Our main commercial activity is growing our brand reputation through franchises spread across the world – we currently have more than 100 studios dispersed among 17 countries. Working to increase our expansion is both very enjoyable and very challenging. As there are unique legal rules and restrictions for each country we operate in, navigating a franchise system across these regional legal systems and doing it all from Türkiye can be difficult. We recently established our franchise in the US, which operates under distinctly different and rigid rules, and this was particularly challenging.

In your opinion, what areas should in-house lawyers focus on over the next few years to prove value to their organisations in Türkiye?

In-house lawyers should pay particular focus to their organisation’s legal compliance. This is especially important in Türkiye as our geographical location is an economic bridge to many countries. Many investors, both Turkish and foreign, do business in different across the world and almost half of them carry their business to Türkiye, requiring corporate lawyers to prioritise a global code of law and compliance. Keeping up with change and diversity is incredibly important and should also be of high priority to in-house legal teams as the economy and the law continue to intertwine.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

As mentioned, our company is expanding all over the world and we thus need to manage a global operational region. To do this effectively, we have split our legal team between continents and countries to allow each to focus more effectively on local laws and regulations. Managing global processes locally is both cost-effective and extremely efficient.