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

There is one event that has really impacted me in the company, which has been the recent merger between Water Technologies and Solutions and Veolia.

Also, the post-Covid consequences, and then the Ukraine conflict issues have been challenging to deal with, as it has been with most companies. Prices management, dealing with customer expectations, employee issues, dealing with uncertainty, sanctions, international laws, national laws, and Russian laws are all issues that have arisen out of this.

Do you have an example of a time when you have come up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works that did not result in a large expense?

The innovation here is in the way that we work. We tend to be business partners, where our in-house team is embedded with the business. We try to get involved in the earliest stages and gain the trust of the businesspeople. When the legal department is embedded within the company, it makes the company as a whole more efficient and productive.

What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry?

In our case, I believe the most important qualities are flexibility and adaptability. It is also crucial to understand the business needs, and to be a business partner working closely with the business, so you can have a cooperative approach with the business in order to anticipate issues before they happen and foresee its consequences. Also you have to be very reactive and to take decisions in complex situations, sometimes in a crisis management context, that you have to be well skilled at, involving different jurisdictions; you have to listen, to be flexible and to show judgment in such situations.