About

The Capital One Bank Canada legal team is led by Andrea Cotroneo, who is the bank’s chief legal officer and chief compliance officer, and also leads compliance and government relations in Canada. The Canada legal team is based in Toronto and consists of nine professionals that provide legal support to all areas of Capital One. The Canada legal team is comprised of a “horizontal advisory” team (HA) and a “vertical advisory” team. The HA team members, led by senior counsel Deric Mackenzie Feder, provides legal support and leadership on a wide range of corporate matters affecting the entire bank, including privacy, contracting and procurement, human resources, legal operations, employment and accessibility matters. In addition to acting as legal advisors, the HA team manages several critical processes for the branch, including management of the branch’s litigation portfolio and governance obligations. The VA team members, led by senior counsel Michael Kostiuk, are business counsel embedded within the Canada business teams. These lawyers collaborate with their business partners to identify legal risks and craft solutions on legal matters related to credit card products, services and digital technology, including consumer protection, anti-money laundering, credit reporting, debt collection, marketing, intellectual property and information technology. The VA team also works proactively to keep their business partners informed of emerging legal issues through the legal radar process. In the last few years, the Canada legal team has fully embraced Capital One’s agile “pod” service delivery model to the legal department. The “pod” system employs small cross-functional teams involving product owners, data scientists, analysts and other participants, to quickly advance and introduce products to the market. It embeds lawyers into the “pod”, to provide ongoing legal input in real-time. Embedded lawyers act as dedicated legal points-of contact for all matters within their “pod”, eliminating redundancies, and allowing lawyers exposure to a wider range of issues. Cotroneo highlights that, ‘at its core, embracing agile principles brings legal closer to its business, allowing for deeper understanding of shifting business priorities. While Capital One’s business has grown considerably, the increased efficiency within legal has allowed the team to maintain high quality service levels without adding any headcount’.