A member of the Athens Bar Association since 1998, Natalie Kedikoglou started her in-house career in 2003, and has operated in the upper echelons of the profession ever since. She initially worked for state-owned railway company GAIAOSE as general counsel and director of legal services, distinguishing herself by managing the legal aspects of the company’s rail infrastructure, rolling stock and real estate; she specialised in EU railway law and took part in the restructuring of the Greek railway sector during this time.

Moving to the private sector and her current role as legal counsel, head of legal affairs and secretary to the board of directors of motorway infrastructure companies Nea Odos and Odos Kentrikis in January 2016, Kedikoglou quickly made an impact in what she describes as ‘a very new environment with new and varied challenges’. She has an extremely varied remit, describing her main responsibilities as ‘relating to project finance, concession, corporate, employment, data protection and litigation arising from motorway operations’. As well as this, Kedikoglou has managed to improve and diversify the capabilities of the four-person legal function of Nea Odos and Odos Kentrikis Elladas, switching the strategy towards relying on internal capabilities rather than using external counsel.

She explains that, now, ‘the in-house legal team is actively involved in all legal matters and we have almost eliminated reliance on external counsel in some areas’. This increase in responsibility has had a corresponding increase on the capabilities of the individual lawyers in the team: ‘the new role of the legal department in the company’s operation has empowered the in-house lawyers and, consequently, their performance is also much improved’.