Team size: 31 

Could you, please, tell us a bit about yourself and your role? 

I am currently legal and compliance director for Profi Rom Food (Profi), the most extended modern retail network in Romania with over 1650 stores across the country, the third biggest retailer on the Romanian market in terms of turnover. 

I am also a member of the board of firectors and vice-president of the Association of the Retailers for Environment, which includes 10 of the biggest retailers. The association has as main objective: The development and implementation of the Deposit-Refund System in Romania, which is the largest circular economy project. With the help of this system, we will be able to have a cleaner and greener environment, achieving the collection and recycling targets imposed at European level by the European Union’s new circular economy package. 

I am a highly experienced legal director, with over 15 years of practice in banking, IT&C and retail industries, in strong international environments. Besides having graduated Law school, I also have a university degree in Management and Business Administration, and I have master’s degrees in business law, Human Resources and also in Financial Banking and Stock Management. I believe in continuous development of both soft skills and industry/job specific competences, so I completed several legal educational programmes (such as IP, consumer protection, environment, food safety), also communication, presentation and negotiation skills, AML and so on. 

After spending eight years in the banking industry, I had the opportunity to join one of the biggest retailers which had, at that moment, just entered the Romanian market.I was involved, from the very beginning, in developing the legal expertise within the company, being exposed to all business areas. After that, I acted as general counsel for a group of companies which had business lines in different areas: telecom, technology, money transfer and food delivery, having a worldwide presence. 

From December 2020, I joined Profi as legal and compliance director, where I am currently responsible for ensuring that our business is legally and regulatory compliant. In this respect I am managing all the legal, compliance and regulatory areas within the company: legal, food safety, quality for private label, import-export, medical devices, environment, public affairs, being also responsible for compliance and data protection. Having such an extensive role has given me the opportunity to develop myself and to have greater exposure to the business. In this sense, from 2023 I am also a member of the executive committee of the company, being involved in decision making processes and in setting and implementing the company’s strategies. 

I strongly believe that the biggest achievement of an internal in-house legal/general counsel is to become a strategic partner for the internal clients. And that can only be achieved by having a great team supporting and working in the same direction, being at the same time easily adaptable to a very dynamic market and being able at the same time to focus on the core matters. I believe that this leads us to becoming strategic business partners.