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?

Having a holistic “risk appetite framework”, including a clearly articulated risk appetite statement set by the company is imperative in devising a legal strategy that aligns with the risk tolerance and commercial objectives of the business. Developing a risk appetite framework should be an inclusive process to ensure that relevant voices across the business are bought in on the risk philosophy. This system ensures that the resulting approach and potential outcomes of the legal strategy are consistent with the objectives of the business.

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

The legal team has been focused on the growth of the business, through acquisitions, strategic joint ventures and new licensed entities.

The legal team has also led the roll out of new independent business lines for Equiti, including the new asset management arm, digital assets ventures, payments solutions and gold trading.

What do you see as the major legal challenges for businesses in the region over the next five years, and how are you preparing to address them?

Managing rapid growth is the single most important challenge for the Middle East region. The Middle East remains a region of rapid growth. This growth is exponential when compared with the modest growth in most other economies in the world. There is a fine balance to strike to keep the social, legislative, economic, political eco-system in balance. The legislative framework must facilitate the fast economic growth in the region; economic growth should be inclusive and facilitate the evolution of the social fabric; and the social fabric needs to be protected from wider political instability.

What is a topic of business that you are passionate about?

Governance. The role of a modern general counsel is becoming increasingly strategic in nature. An essential area of strategic contribution is the governance structure of the business, which a general counsel is often best placed to evolve. This is particularly important in high growth companies, where a bespoke fit for purpose governance structure is needed to keep people empowered, to have the right systems and controls in place, for decisions to be made an in inclusive manner, and to prevent operational issues and even disputes.