Şebnem Önder holds overall responsibility for the world’s most international tobacco group, British American Tobacco (BAT), in Turkey and North Africa Area with respect to legal and security functions. As a member of BAT’s North Africa Area management team, Önder contributes to the development and realisation of integrated business strategies to achieve the business’ objectives and ultimately its vision for the company. She also provides direction, leadership and talent development, guiding the in-house team to navigate corporate and regulatory governance to mitigate risk for the business and maximise competitive advantage. She has gained attention for her approach to all tasks with one nominator saying: ‘Önder is an intelligent, solution-oriented colleague. We have worked together for several years, and her exceptional strategic and practical mind-set will prove invaluable in her new position as the head of BAT North Africa’. Önder also plans and shapes the legal function’s strategy and policies to meet the needs of the business whilst simultaneously meeting the requirements of the central functions and global functional initiatives. The international scope of her role sees her ensuring compliance with a special focus on sanctions against certain countries, representing international companies on their entry into the Turkish market and advising them on strategic matters. Having been in this intense role since 2014, Önder has developed extensive experience in privatisation and joint ventures, particularly in cross-border transactions for multinational and Turkish clients, successfully completing many banking and capital markets transactions in the process. Prior to her time at BAT, Önder had a twenty year career at international law firm White & Case, where she led a wide range of corporate and financial transactions in numerous cross border M&As, advancing her legal skills which she effortlessly now utilises at BAT.