Team size: 170    

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience? 

As general counsel we are increasingly involved in complex discussions, on relevant and heterogeneous issues with a high strategic profile and which expose the company to legal and reputational risks. Today the Legal Department has taken a key role in corporate governance processes and in the definition of business strategies, so much so that it can stand as advisor/partner of the Top Management.

In times of change and evolution, the Legal Department has a critical and fundamental task, namely to address the emergency by trying to stabilise the situation, managing the risk and securing the company. The analysis of the causes – the most deep-rooted ones – requires time and analysis, and is essential to understand, learn and evolve.

The multidisciplinary nature that characterises our role, combined with the necessary knowledge of the business and the strategic vision of the Board, I believe are our distinctive levers as well as the enabling factors to manage complex situations and allow us to effectively monitor/anticipate the evolution of the ecosystem that hosts us (both legal and market), so as to identify any weaknesses and the need for corrective intervention and, therefore, make choices that over time are aligned with the company strategy.

What are the main cases or transactions that you have been involved in recently?

One of the main transactions followed by the General Counsel Area of Generali Country Italy was the integration of the Cattolica Group into Generali, which took shape – over the last two years – with the implementation of a complex corporate transaction aimed to rationalise the legal entities of the Country Italy and to achieve significant synergies, in line with the objectives defined at Group level. The transaction required a transversal vision able to understand the complexity of the implications connected to the reorganisation, the relative strengths and the interactions with other projects. The General Counsel was able to interpret the complexity of the context, identifying the technical-legal solutions and addressing the integration project.

How have you integrated technology into your legal processes, and what impact has this had on efficiency and compliance?

Digitalisation and innovation are not only supporting the performance of traditional legal activities but they are also transforming the legal approach, triggering a relevant transformation that will force us to change. To adapt to these new dynamics, an acceleration in people and change management programs will be necessary, focusing on the people up-skilling and re-skilling with the aim to make scalable the systematic redefinition and updating of skills and accelerating the qualification and transfer of the same.

The key to better take advantage of opportunities offered by these new technologies will be to understand how to combine and connect their immense potential with the experience, thinking and judgment of professionals who know the challenges and unique objectives of their organisations. Undoubtedly a great responsibility that, as professionals and managers, will require a continuous and very fascinating challenge!

As of today, thanks to the multidisciplinary skills that characterise our profession and the knowledge of the business and organisations that we support, we are able to approach the implementation of new technological tools in a thoughtful and oriented way, first at all, to simplify the daily activities require a lot of time and, sometimes, have low value added. Let’s think of the “simplest” automation systems for monitoring, identification and pre-analysis processes of the new laws applicable to the company, which permit to the professional to evaluate, better and faster, the risks and making informed and more aware decisions, or even those automation systems for the generation of standardised documents or contract revision. Relying on large databases, with significant historical depth, heterogeneous data sources (Big Data) and advanced analysis tools (Analytics and AI), we could also think to adopt systems able to prevent disputes identifying recurring behavior patterns or similar market conditions and estimate the probability of possible future disputes. This permit to the professional to act in a preventive way by evaluating the adoption of measures aimed at avoiding the development of critical situations that could have a reputational and financial impact.