Team size: 35

Can you tell us a little about your significant accomplishments over the last few years, as a team or by yourself?

In the past few years, given the environment created by the pandemic, a lot of work has gone into keeping the teams motivated and adequately informed in the context of remote working and coping with the additional workload the situation has brought.

One of the greatest achievements of the team has been to manage the tremendous amount of lease negotiations as a result of the successive lockdowns throughout the world; another has been to cope simultaneously with “normal” projects — which very often have not really stopped — and Covid-specific, short-term and one-shot operations designed to keep the brand in the spotlight although their stores were closed. This has very often had to be managed with shorter-than-normal deadlines. On the flip side, it has also forced us to create stronger and more efficient processes, which is key for a growing group.

Other achievements include external growth transactions such as the acquisition and integration of The Kooples, the takeover of the Hong Kong market for Lacoste, the China market for GANT and The Kooples, and Spain for GANT. For Lacoste, the team has been instrumental in accompanying the business in its collaborations with, among others, Bruno Mars, Peanuts, Polaroid and Minecraft, as well as consolidating the brand’s footprint in the sports segment with sponsorship and ambassador contracts with tennis stars like Daniil Medvedev and Venus Williams and parasport athlete Theo Curin. Most recently, the team has also assisted Lacoste in entering the metaverse and NFT world, with a first NFT launch in May.

What do you predict will be the biggest change to the legal market in France, in the next few years?

The ever-increasing compliance regulations forcing companies to implement programmes to detect and prevent non-compliant behaviour will represent a substantial organisational change. It is creating more process-driven organisations at all levels, which I think is a mindset that France, and most of continental Europe, have been slower at adopting than the Anglo-Saxon world. Another significant change is the growing digitalisation of legal and compliance departments. It is partly the result of the former but also made necessary by the increasing workload and pace.

Have any recent political, economic or regulatory changes impacted your work? How are you dealing with this?

As explained in the previous question, growing compliance regulations have increased the need for processes and digitalisation, which we are addressing. We have created a small legal operations function without, however, any dedicated resources yet. The new international sanctions surrounding the Russia-Ukraine conflict have also prompted specific focus, with a firm reliance on outside counsel due to the complexity of the matter.

What is a cause, business-related or otherwise, that you care about, and why?

Being in a resource-intensive industry, I think the environmental footprint is an important cause and responsibility of companies in this industry. In addition to “traditional” issues such as production-related sustainability targets. Recent legislation is putting pressure on the disposal of the product, as in France, where there is now a total ban on destruction. While worldwide harmonisation would be desirable, there is also a moral obligation for companies to reduce their footprint in terms of unsold products. If industry-wide, action results in this field can be very fast and visible, but it will take innovation and courage to achieve them.