‘I believe that providing in-house legal support and advice which is secure, fast, practical and business-oriented is an important element for the growth of the corporate banking general division of the bank and a competitive advantage for the bank in general’, states Sophia Apostolidou, head of corporate banking legal support division (performing loans) for Eurobank Ergasias, Greece’s third largest bank by total assets.

She is enjoying a long tenure at the bank, having first joined in 1998 as an in-house lawyer attaining a grounding of knowledge of the company and its relevant legal issues. Earning a number of promotions and internal recognitions since, she became a senior lawyer in 2001 before becoming the divisional head for the wholesale loans and corporate identity legal division in 2007. Undertaking her current role in 2014, Apostolidou’s main contributions to the bank are felt in an immediate sense in mitigating legal issues as well as on the balance sheets and the business’ overall strategy; highlighting her involvement in ‘the legal management of the majority of the important financing transactions relating to the bank’s corporate and investment banking portfolio’.

This management of issues has seen Apostolidou become immersed in extremely important transactions on behalf of Eurobank Ergasias, most notably on a number of loan portfolio acquisitions, debt restructuring, project financing, major syndicated loans and lending agreements. Summing up her success, Apostolidou states: ‘I am proud of my own and the team’s skills and provision of legal services and of the fact that we have built a very good reputation, which has led to a wider acceptance not only throughout the bank’s group corporate and investment banking [areas], but also by the top external law offices of the market’.