Konstantina Schiza is the head of legal at VICTUS Networks, a company that was formed as a 50/50 joint venture between Vodafone Greece and its domestic rival Wind Hellas in order to share second and third generation mobile access networks.

Evincing her importance within the business, Schiza is a member of the company’s management team and acts as secretary to the board of directors. She directly reports to the CEO and was responsible for the company’s initial set up and incorporation, which she explains involved ‘regulatory filing, shareholders agreements, articles of association, trademark and domain name filing’ as well as ‘the coordination of various stakeholders’ also. A legal professional with a wide variety of roles, Schiza negotiates, drafts and assists on all types of contracts, provides advice on employment law matters as well as corporate governance and stakeholder management.

When speaking of her career highlights, of which there are several, Schiza raises the aforementioned creation of the VICTUS Networks organisation. She is proud of her ‘participation in a highly demanding project, meaning the establishment of an original and innovative company’. She also notes her attainment of a high level of knowledge regarding technology and innovation, explaining that this proactivity in terms of business challenges meant her legal expertise became more “business-like”, which she claims is a ‘key element for any in-house legal counsel’. Transactions are an extremely important part of Schiza’s day to day work, as the company’s activities are linked with the delivery of ‘major and time-dependent’ projects with a number of different parties.

In addition to her day-to-day activities, Schiza keeps regular tabs on new legal and regulatory requirements by networking and participating in professional associations (both local and international) and is a regular attendee at conferences across the fields of corporate law, privacy, and the bar. She summarises her considerable success and future ambitions as follows: ‘I have learnt how to identify and analyse risk quickly and lay out the options for the business through the development of cost effective legal proposals.

The aim is to maintain the already successfully built internal and external relations of trust and cooperation with the company’s shareholders and other stakeholders, to the end of managing complex governance and operational issues’.