About

The Microsoft Greece, Cyprus and Malta legal team comprises of a multi-skilled function, containing not just legal personnel but also government affairs personnel, and it collaborates closely with the philanthropies head for the Central Eastern Europe region. Antigoni Papanikolaou, the legal lead of the team is ably backed up by paralegal Paula Ruiz de Angulo, while government affairs manager for Greece Tilemachos Moraitis completes the lineup. Papanikolaou sees the expansion of the team as the major story in its development over recent months: ‘The introduction of the paralegal team was a significant change in the operation of the legal department. Especially taking into consideration that in continental Europe and in Greece it is not so common to have a paralegal role in the legal department and in addition in our case, our paralegal colleague is not even based in the same location. This was a factor which made the implementation of the new schema even more challenging’. Among other successful projects, Papanikolaou names the team’s work on ‘driving a regional project on how to support and facilitate the business strategy regarding the interaction with Microsoft partners’ and ‘actively supporting the company’s strategy around artificial intelligence’ as its major contribution to the company’s recent success. She also regards the team’s positive approach to its work to be a core factor in its achievements. ‘Our team culture reflects the values of our company to respect and treat each other fairly and to be diverse and inclusive while at the same time to never undermine our integrity which is of paramount importance for the department and the company overall’, she says.