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

Over the past twelve months, the most significant accomplishments have been those related to the post-closing period following the acquisition by the French group Amea of Aviva France (now Abeille Assurances) from Aviva. I took up my duties the day after the closing, in addition to the quick understanding of the operational and legal challenges and of the positioning of the legal function, and had to secure the continuity of the legal activity during the transition period. The most significant actions were those related to the uncoupling to an English group to which Aviva France had belonged to for more than 20 years and stow the group to a new French group, as well as internal restructuring operations.

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

The health, geo-political and economic crises of recent years and months have impacted both the company’s activities and the working methods.  The successive waves have shown the essential involvement of the legal direction in crisis preparation and management, requiring agility, creativity, and reactivity to enable business continuity and preserve the interests and profitability of the company.

The sustainability of remote work has required us to reconsider our working methods, management, and relationships, in order to continue to respond effectively with agility and the highest added value to the needs of the company. Give meaning, autonomy while keeping a team spirit and a corporate culture are essential.

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

Beyond being the guardian of the integrity of the company in an environment where the ethical and compliance dimension are becoming more and more important and beyond its role of anticipation and risk management, the challenges in the coming years will be to put the law at the service of the development and implementation of the strategy and create value for the company. Legal market must also meet the challenges of new technologies, digital technology, personal data protection and AI.

We must play an active role in the company’s strategy as well in the sensitive areas of governance, compliance and risk management and ESG.

To respond to these challenges more effectively, we must face the challenges of digitising the legal function.