About

Holding the position as general counsel of Esso’s Italian subsidiary for almost 20 years, Raimondo Rinaldi takes pride in his legal department being recognised as ‘critical to flawless operations’ in the face of numerous challenges presented by the energy industry. Using a positive mentality and a pragmatic approach as key motivations in his leadership style, Rinaldi has changed Esso’s Italian legal department from lawyers working distantly from their business colleagues into a department side by side with internal clients driving ‘effective solutions to achieve business objectives’. Rinaldi states that his group are ‘highly appreciated by the management, by the clients, by the partners and the institutions we work with’. Although they are known internally for their positive results, Rinaldi and his team still face professional challenges in the form of ‘major projects, investigations and litigations’, as well as the volatile nature of oil prices constantly looming over the industry. It is Rinaldi’s mission to continue to offer ‘high quality, efficient and effective legal service’ in an increasingly more complex legal and regulatory system, a more competitive business and economic environment and a constantly changing global and local company organisation. Outside of his role at Esso, Rinaldi is a respected industry voice on the legal topics of the day; acting as a speaker at seminars and conferences on compliance, antitrust and distribution law, while also having authored various publications mainly on distribution and competition law.