As the head of the legal team at Hellenic Bank, the second largest commercial bank in Cyprus, Calliopi Nicolaidou’s responsibilities include managing its legal team of 12 lawyers which advises the business on a broad range of legal issues. These include the granting and restructuring of local retail, international financing transactions, corporate M&A, marketing, compliance and corporate governance issues as well as the implementation of new or amended local transactions and EU laws and regulations.

Amongst some of the instrumental changes implemented, she has initiated more discussions with other business lines to understand and address legal risk appropriately, hence proactively reducing legal risks of the bank and up-skilling company staff in regards to legal matters in the process. She has also delegated to mid-level lawyers allowing them to be responsible for certain sectors and accountable for the result thereby resulting in more efficient handling of cases and more motivating work circumstances for the team: ‘This has enabled my team to learn and develop on their experiences and become more visible within the bank whilst also giving them a clear career path’, says Nicolaidou.

Perhaps most notably, she was also behind the creation of APS Debt Servicing Cyprus, the first servicer in Cyprus – a joint venture between Hellenic Bank and APS that involved the granting of a servicing agreement to the servicer by Hellenic Bank for its non-performing loan (NPL) portfolio. Nicolaidou was involved in negotiating transaction documentation and implementation, and had discussions with regulatory and competition authorities as well as negotiations with trade union employees. ‘This is the first debt servicing company in the Cypriot market and has resulted in more efficient work out of Hellenic’s problematic loans but also opened the market for NPL transactions in Cyprus’, explains Nicolaidou. She also had significant involvement in the €20m investment by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Hellenic Bank’s share capital, resulting in 5.4% shareholding by EBRD in Hellenic Bank and further enhancing the credibility of the investor base at Hellenic.