Nicola Bonucci’s journey with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) began in 1993, but his experience with intergovernmental organisations goes back further than that, as he previously worked as a legal officer with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome.

He joined the OECD as a legal advisor, becoming director in 2005, and now focuses on ‘general public international law issues, participating in the negotiation of international agreements, interpreting the basic texts of the organisation, and providing legal opinions to the senior management), the Council and its subsidiary bodies’. Bonucci mentions that he has been ‘spending a lot of time on ensuring the full implementation of the OECD Anti Bribery convention’ lately, as well as ‘legal work on the agenda for international taxation’.

As well as this, he is the coordinator of the OECD’s accession project, aimed at assisting countries to fulfil the standards required to become a full OECD member via the use of a delineated roadmap. Bonucci now runs a department of 23 individuals, and mentions that he has ‘expanded the scope of what we are doing’ over the course of his management of the legal function: ‘When I came into this position, the legal office was covering purely internal management more than anything. Now because of the accession project and others, we are undergoing a major shift’.

He also shared his views on what makes a great GC or in-house counsel: ‘Any GC who wants to be effective, cannot be someone who only says no. Or, if you have to, you must give alternatives’, he states. ‘Your task is to make yourself someone who people want to come and speak to, and your advice needs to take into account – as much as possible – that you are part of a corporation that has larger interests. Your point of view is important but there are other important points of view’.