About

The recently established legal function of APIVITA has been entrusted with acting as the company’s primary legal advisor on a wide range of legal issues, with the lion’s share of its workload in support of the company’s international development and global IP portfolios but with a significant amount of resources spent on corporate and executive management work among a host of other responsibilities. Afroditi Kanellopoulou is in charge of the team in her position of head of legal affairs and secretary to the board of directors. ‘In 2017’, she says, ‘the company’s majority stake was acquired by Puig, the Barcelona-based leading fashion and beauty group with a presence in over 150 countries. Puig’s long experience in global markets is helping APIVITA realise its vision for international growth and evolution. Within this context, the legal work has become even more internationalised in order to contribute to the strategic direction of the business within the relative legal frameworks’. When discussing the department’s most significant achievements in recent years, she chose to highlight ‘the legal support in the development of the company’s international activities – the company is now present in 14 international markets – and, secondly, the legal support to the management in negotiating and obtaining the company’s trademark in China giving an end to a costly and time-consuming litigation in China’. The team’s philosophy is clear and rooted in a highly ethical approach, according to Kanellopoulou: ‘the ethos of a company is found directly in the ethos of its people. This is why APIVITA leads by example and shows the way to sustainable development in the natural cosmetics market’.