About

Before joining Aviva, Luca Gentile worked for public notaries and for top law firms in Italy. In 2009 he “crossed over” to the in-house sector, after being an external advisor of a number of companies to employee of one Group, initially in the company secretary area and then part of the set-up of the internal legal department. He worked his way up through the organisation and in April 2018 was appointed as head of legal, company secretary and regulatory advice of the group in Italy managing a team of eight employees. Whilst Gentile has been with Aviva, the legal, company secretary and regulatory department has increased its responsibilities, both in terms of areas of expertise – including insurance products, governance, investments, digital, data protection, outsourcing, regulatory and distribution – and cost reduction, requiring less external legal support for generic activities and more focused on material and significant ones. Gentile has been involved in strategic M&A agreements involving some of the top banks in Italy, and in restructuring projects which involved the overall Aviva Group in Italy, as well as some material litigations involving several parties. He has strived to create a strong legal presence within the business, and at the same time, continue to achieve in the face of never ending challenges. On his approach, Gentile says that, ‘maintaining a cohesive and proactive legal team is another challenge very important to me: people with whom you spend most of your life are the real added value. Trust and respect are the recipe of successes’.