About

‘I cannot think of many aspects that I do not enjoy – I consider myself very lucky’, Rima Hadid Al Masri says of her role as Mumtalakat Holding Company’s legal and company secretarial head. ‘Due to the variety of sectors that our investment portfolio covers, I am exposed to types of transactions, which most in-house lawyers would not have access to. Working for the investment arm of the Kingdom of Bahrain, there is nothing more rewarding than knowing that you have contributed to the growth of a country’s economy and worked towards social and economic development’. Praised repeatedly for her high-powered skillset, professionalism and ethical standards, Hadid ‘brings in a unique dimension to any process from a legal and strategic perspective’. Sources particularly highlight her management of difficult circumstances surrounding her role in Mumtalakat’s now defunct subsidiary Gulf Technics’ final days. ‘It would be easy to discuss highlights in one’s career in terms of transactions, but I would say that my biggest achievement to date related to a somewhat negative task that needed to be addressed’, Hadid says herself. ‘I joined the company whilst it was going through very stressful conditions. I had to manage the internal affairs of the company and set up basic functions for them, in addition to managing current contracts and dispute resolution. All this in an industry that I did not have any previous experience in’. When the business came to be wound up, Hadid concluded on all contractual, financial and legal liabilities, including wide-scale redundancies. ‘What made this a bigger challenge than usual, was that this was a government-owned entity, attracting political and social attention and related sensitivities’, Hadid adds. Since her arrival at Mumtalakat in 2013, Hadid has instigated a wide-scale overhaul of legal and company secretarial functions to improve efficiency. This has included examination both of the law firms they instruct and the kinds of work they are outsourcing to them. ‘To be frank the law firms that we have historically dealt with and continue to instruct have been a pleasure to deal with, and very accommodating to our needs’, she says. ‘One thing that I would like to see improved in a couple of firms that we have come across, relates to their cost estimations. As a client, it is very difficult to deal with a law firm who undercuts fees to ensure they provide a competitive fee proposal, yet then attempts to recoup costs by deeming work out of scope’.