About

The in-house legal team at Roche Pharma Turkey is led by Soley Güzel, legal, compliance and internal audit director, and is made up of four lawyers, two specialists, an internal audit manager and an intern. The legal, compliance and internal audit team is structured under these three pillars with all three functions working very closely. Within the legal pillar, the manager Irem Cansu Atikcan, counsel Fırat Altaş, a specialist and an intern are responsible for all legal topics of the company. The legal subdivision also delegates and collaborates with external counsels, internally focusing on strategic projects, data privacy, competition law, market access related regulations and clinical trials. Compliance counsel Dicle Gündoğdu focuses on internal investigations, the “speak-up” policy, Roche’s code of conduct, third party compliance as well as compliance to highly regulated industry specific rules. Internal audit manager Süha Üstünel focuses on the audit of company processes regarding efficiency and conformity, improves business processes by identifying roles and responsibilities and provides consultancy regarding possible business risks. Over the last two years, the legal and compliance teams’ responsibilities and collaboration changed and was made clearer and Güzel joined as the new department head. In line with the transforming role of legal teams in many global companies, the team has also focused on being an agile business partner as well as finding business oriented solutions not only for the company’s Turkish affiliate but also for the EEMEA region, by collaborating with and influencing the other legal teams. ‘We have also won two internal Roche Vision Awards, for process simplification and digitalisation projects’, explains Güzel. She also highlights that, ‘as our team is a solution-oriented business partner, we ensure pro-actively that business teams and our team act as one body in full collaboration and at the end the business results are achieved within the most compliant and legally flawless way’. The team is dedicated to keep on highlighting legal and compliance culture within the organisation creating “tailor-made trainings” for all departments, focusing on creative and user friendly ways to communicate legal messages to the organisation.