How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Legal must remain a strategic business partner, particularly during critical times. By leveraging its risk-based mindset and business-centric approach, it can focus on risks that most significantly impact business objectives. The key is to engage in thorough collaboration with other stakeholders; working closely with them enables Legal to identify and prioritise legal threats, based on their relevance to current business priorities.

Legal strategy must seamlessly integrate with, and support, broader business strategy. This is done by incorporating legal design principles into the legal strategy, which entails creating clear, user-friendly legal processes and documents that facilitate better communication between Legal and business teams and enhance stakeholder and client engagement.

Furthermore, legal must strive to acquire a deep understanding of business objectives, in order to ensure that legal priorities align with overall strategic priorities. The best way to achieve this is to assertively advocate for the inclusion of Legal in discussions of key corporate initiatives before strategic decisions are made, thus intensifying Legal’s involvement in corporate decision-making.

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession in the near future, and how do you stay updated on these developments?

The answer would most certainly be Artificial Intelligence. As it continues to evolve, AI will become an indispensable tool for Legal and Legal Operations departments. AI advancements will create room for efficiency, automation, predictive analytics and more consistency in decision-making, which improves accountability and leads to better legal outcomes.

Apart from reading and educating ourselves on AI, as well as tracking legal developments surrounding its use, I believe that the best way to stay up-to-date is to adopt a hands-on approach; actively making use of and experimenting with AI on a daily basis allows for the identification of potential use cases and improves our ability to utilise AI technology in innovative and effective ways.

In your opinion, what are the main trends that are salient in your country currently (these can be legal, political, economy or business-based)?

Cyprus remains a favourable location for financial service providers, due to its competitive tax regime and robust regulatory framework. As Cyprus is a member of the EU, Cypriot trends are heavily influenced by EU policy.

From a legal perspective, we see an influx of EU legislative acts and guidelines on areas including cybersecurity, data protection, sustainability, money laundering/terrorist financing and the regulation of crypto-assets and related activities and services. In the financial sector, there is also an ongoing discussion surrounding the transparency and comparability of investment products for retail investors and the prospect of data sharing between financial institutions.

Furthermore, the tech sector in Cyprus is growing, with increased investment in startups, while the business and government sectors are increasingly investing in digital transformation and maximising their spending on technology and innovation. Resources are being employed and initiatives are launched to encourage and facilitate the creation of electronic filing systems and services, as well as the enhancement of digital infrastructure.