About

Distinguished financial lawyer Domenica Lista started her career working for international law firms and cooperating with the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs in the European litigation department. It was approximately eight years after gaining her law degree that she decided to join the world of in-house legal counsel. Amongst her most notable in-house roles since moving to the sector include her time as head of legal, corporate, litigation and claims for IWBank, the online bank of the UBI Group. Listing this role as one of the highlights of her career, Lista says: ‘I held this position for two years and such work experience was really important for me in terms of understanding the regulatory framework of the online banks’. Her involvement in the legal issues arising from financial advisors gave her the chance to improve and increase her expertise in this specific area of financial regulation. Her experience as head of corporate affairs and holding in Centro Banca, one of the banks of the UBI Group, and the fourth largest Italian banking group also stands out. She held this role for five years and during that time has had the opportunity to practice and deeply understand all the dynamics involving the Bank and its relationship with the holding company UBI, as well as all the processes regarding the regulators Bank of Italy and Consob: ‘As the company secretary, I had the privilege to manage legal issues arising from the board of directors of Centro Banca, and this helped me also in terms of corporate governance skills and competences’ says Lista. Citing the aforementioned experiences as milestones on which she built her career path and the reason why she’s been chosen as general counsel of Banca Generali, Lista says that her current role is now a mix of legal and corporate affairs skills and strong technicalities coming from the financial advisors business she has to deal with every day. At Banca Generali, since 2016 her strategic role has included helping the banking group in pursuing all the business activities within the legal and regulatory boundaries, while on the other hand, preventing the company from potential legal and reputational risks. ‘Since the beginning, I have tried to interpret the role of general counsel in a different and more dynamic way, closer to a legal team of an international law firm than to a simple “legal direction” of a company’. Lista has invested strongly in terms of “people strategy” by changing the working approach of her team which has resulted in her team members being better engaged and enthusiastic in all the different activities involving the legal department.