Admitted to the Paris Bar in 2000, Joel Corcessin has subsequently built an outstanding legal career that has seen him practice in high profile law firms in London and Paris for approximately 15 years covering a range of legal areas, spanning M&A, private equity, restructuring and equity capital markets. Working on the legal aspects of the takeover of Arc International (now Arc Holdings) amidst a complex financial restructuring, Corcessin was invited to continue his work on this deal in-house, and joined the company as its group general counsel in May 2015.

He comments on this transition as having allowed him to ‘have an intimate knowledge of the actual business of the company, its specificities, and its challenges, in order to better apply legal skills to the business in concrete terms rather than abstract ones’. Since his arrival, Corcessin has presided over a number of commercial developments on behalf of Arc Holdings, and has also developed the capacity of the Group’s internal legal function. This was done through the hiring of ‘two internal IP in-house counsel to internalise our IP management and better assist our commercial and research and development teams, as well as [hire] an additional in-house counsel in order to improve our quality of service and turnaround time’.

Corcessin is currently overseeing the rollout of a ‘comprehensive internal control framework’ that has group-wide application, further evincing his output and business-transforming activities. Staying in close contact with his business partners at all times and proving his multi-faceted support, he states his communication is ‘direct and ongoing’ with the ‘business, finance [and] commercial teams’ within Arc Holdings.

Acutely aware of how his recent work has made him a more well-rounded and experienced lawyer, Corcessin sums up his three in-house career highlights as having achieved ‘in-depth knowledge of the company’s operations, a more diverse practice and decision-shaping and decision-making’.