About

With 25 years of experience as an in-house counsel, chief legal officer Simone Chini is the head of group legal affairs and data protection officer for Allianz in Milan. He is responsible for all legal matters and litigation regarding the financial multinational’s operations – which are active in both the banking and insurance sectors – in Italy. He manages a team of 45 people across the Italian practice and is responsible for advising the management team on all legal activities, as well as keeping members abreast of pending legal issues. In this role, he oversees all legal and regulatory matters to serve the best interests of the company, its customers and distributors. He is the legal advisor for executive management as well as the control and compliance functions, and oversees product development, special investigations, public affairs and state government relations. He has introduced rigorous management control of legal fees; this initiative, combined with the digitalisation of litigation case management tool, has improved the department’s management. Chini says that, ‘doing this we [as a legal department] were no longer perceived as mere cost centre but also as profit generator’. Chini attributes his success as an in-house lawyer and leader to ‘constant attention to and concrete support for business needs, the management of legal risks and creation of value for the company through the production of good legal work’. After the conclusion of this research, Chini left the in-house legal sector to pursue a career in private practice.