Team size: six

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

In 2022, SabancıDx progressed rapidly, with an integrated model comprising four main focuses; cyber security, digital marketing technologies and services, cloud and technology services, and digital transformation products. In the same year, I participated in the legal process that moved the company’s headquarters to Europe, and after the move, I simultaneously completed two M&A projects. One of these projects was related to an Israel-based cyber security company and the other was related to an Istanbul-based digital marketing company.

During the M&A processes, I became an active member of the integration team of integration project which covers newly acquired companies and SabanciDx – while ensuring our operations were unimpeded. Legal and compliance issues were one of the most critical operations that had to be carried out in harmony with the cultural differences in the acquired companies and the internal dynamics of these companies.

SabancıDx has become a global technology portfolio company with a doubled number of customers and a footprint in 60 countries. Trying to manage the legal and compliance issues of integration using an approach that considers the internal dynamics of the companies, while managing the portfolio continues to be a huge challenge. I try to make this challenge as manageable as possible, with an analytical and proactive business approach; closely working with business units and finance teams and creating one-to-one communication avenues with the management team of newly acquired companies.

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

Taking full advantage of technology and its benefits is now one of the most important issues of all companies, regardless of the sector. In companies where technology is a core component, technology literate in-house lawyers that can provide guidance on developing compliance and risk perspectives in this field will be valuable.

Secondly, since financial management is one of the most critical issues, I believe that the role of in-house legal counsel should have a finance and financial risk management aspect. This familiarity with commercial or financial operations will enable them to contribute to financial management decisions.

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?

Our team has a contract management application that easily provides access to information regarding units that own the contracts, contract renewal periods, price increase periods, and the opinions of the teams examining the contracts. With this application, we were able to provide electronic archiving of contracts, avoiding the hard copy filing processes. Consequently, contract processes are managed faster, allowing us to follow up on contract approvals and explanations.