About

Team size: 40
Major law firms used: Allen & Overy, Baker McKenzie, DLA Piper, Linklaters

Monica Risam, the highly regarded former Aviva UK Life GC, joined Luxembourg wealth-structuring company Lombard International Assurance as Europe GC in January 2018.

Since joining Lombard, Risam has been ‘laying foundations’ for the team to have a legal-partner mindset, encouraging lawyers to sit down with the business. She leads a multidisciplinary team across legal, regulatory affairs, company secretariat, risk and compliance.

‘We’re here to support the business and help it grow. Management and stakeholders see me as a problem solver and that’s one of the most challenging and interesting things about being a GC. It requires skill and judgement to understand when you need to dive in and when it’s time to take a step back.’

Lombard is owned by private equity giant The Blackstone Group and has €74.6bn in global assets under management. Risam, widely cited for her role in helping make Aviva’s highly regarded legal team become a pacesetter during her six years there, also joined Lombard’s executive committee and reports to Lombard Europe chief executive Axel Hörger.

Risam helped organise Lombard’s first women’s network to support female talent in the company and is now looking to set up a formal adviser panel. ‘I’ve started doing that with a couple of firms because I believe in a longer-term panel strategy,’ says Risam.

Risam tries to position herself as an ‘iceberg’ within her team – avoiding the perils of too much micro-managing, while being able to jump into situations when needed. She says the expression ‘calm seas do not make great sailors’ epitomises her career so far, adding that her path to success owes much to the cliché ‘the only constant is change’ in the workplace.

‘There’s never been a dull moment. During my six years at Aviva, I had three different jobs when the business was going through a lot of change, including the largest merger in the sector in 15 years, so I’ve had the benefit of growing my career while there has been a lot of turmoil in financial services.’