Team size: Six

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?

Just like many other professions, the pandemic posed huge organisational challenges and forced us to reconsider the way we work and collaborate. In terms of team management, we had to dedicate energy and time to mitigate issues intrinsic to remote working which could have been disruptive to human relationships and to the ability to efficiently work in a team. Equally we had to embrace the challenge to adapt to new ways of doing M&A transactions, as before the pandemic closing an M&A deal without physical negotiation meetings would have been unconceivable. However, I am proud to be part of a group that empowered its managers and employees with the appropriate resources and knew how to leverage those challenges to positively revolutionise our way of working.

What are the most significant cases and transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

The team I lead is responsible for providing legal assistance on all the M&A transactions above €100m in value, across several geographical or strategic areas for the group. Many remarkable deals have been concluded by Generali group in the last three years; legal activities we led, include the acquisition of Tripmate (US), dismissal of Generali Leben (Germany), dismissal of Generali Worldwide (Guernsey), acquisition of Seguradoras Unidas (Portugal), acquisition of Axa Greece, acquisition of Axa Affin life insurance and Axa Affin General Insurance (Malaysia), public tender offer on Cattolica Assicurazioni (Italy). We partnered with Discovery Group for the development of wellness products, and with Accenture for the setup of an IT and innovation platform. Additionally, we provided legal assistance in the management of the group debts including setting up and renewal of Generali EMTN programme and related bond issuance.

What do you feel are the pros and cons of an in-house legal role compared to a private practice one?

In my experience in-house counsel and legal practitioners play complementary but different roles. External lawyers are the technicians who provide legal analysis and technical work that an in-house team – due to its size and different competencies, cannot provide autonomously. The in-house counsel role is to partner with business colleagues by translating and framing legal advice and analysis into commercial reality. In other words, in-house counsel has the ultimate responsibility of taking decisions in a commercially sensible manner on legal issues after having weighed risks and benefits.