The current vice president of legal affairs for Greek supermarket chain AB Vassilopoulos, Eleni Providi was an instrumental part of the biggest deal in the history of the organisation, the acquisition of the Trofo retail chain worth almost €70m. Providi spoke of this transaction as a ‘great lesson on the interlocking ties between legal and business, which a successful GC needs to always keep first in mind’, and this attitude has carried her through other career achievements that saw her given the ‘challenging mission’ to setup, restructure and integrate the legal functions across South Eastern Europe on behalf of the company.

Taking the initiative during this approximately three year period, Providi explains how she ‘spent time travelling getting to know newly acquired companies and their own culture, interviewing and hiring people and finally organising numerous legal functions, succeeding in changing legal culture where necessary and creating one aligned and business-oriented legal team across South Eastern Europe’. In addition to this, Providi is proud of her contribution to the rollout of a unified compliance culture throughout the AB Vassilopoulos business, which she states ‘requires a major shift of mind-set and culture’ and a tremendous amount of work involving training sessions for every employee. Providi is a leader of a team that she says ‘serves a big organisation in a holistic way’ and one that has a dual function of combining ‘high quality legal services with strategic business partnership’.