Team size: over 60 

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved the way your legal team works and didn’t come at a huge cost? 

I have since learned that relevant innovations cost you nothing financially, but sometimes require something that is hard to do – changing your mindset and reinterpreting your role within the professional community and organisation.    

Although last years’ events disrupted our business as usual, they also provided a huge opportunity to enable and use alternative channels for value creation in our personal and professional lives.  

For example, my in-house legal team developed bots for easing our due diligence research in public and internal databases. During the pandemic, we launched a conversational chatbot to provide legal solutions for the most recurrent business issues. We are currently improving it with a ChatGPT framework, which works like a charm. We also moved our legal trainings online, aimed high and created interactive online legal training on our company’s platform that allows us to address various topics in short videos, interactive quizzes, peer reviews and feedback loops.   

Although all these technical innovations weigh a lot on our balance sheet, people come first when the subject is value creation, and our biggest gain is based on this principle.  

The key ingredient for my team’s success comes from the adoption of an antifragile mindset when facing adversity, and of a design thinking and skin in the game approach when providing expertise.  

My team embraced a group identity, Legal Fixer, that allows us to express our expertise and values in professional life and beyond, in sporting and social activities. “If you want to go far, go together”, “Legal work is teamwork” and “Teamwork makes the dream work” are simple but effective guidelines for our team dynamics.  

Since 2019, I have had the opportunity to innovate beyond my team’s borders in our professional community, by acting as vice president of the Romanian Banking and Finance In-house Legal Counsels Association and taking it to a level never seen before in its 20 years of existence. Our community now has all the means for modern online interactions and virtual badges for members are on their way.  

The most iconic event of our association, that as an organiser I am very proud of, is the Hall of Fame Awards Gala. Inspired by the GC Powerlist, the gala will reach its fourth edition this year and is a unique opportunity for national banking stakeholders to recognise the merits of our finest legal advisors, leaders, and ambassadors.  

I am also very proud of being one of the initiators and lectors of the post-graduate educational program, Banking and New Tech Law, the biggest academic achievement of our professional association, launched this year in partnership with National Economic Studies Academy.  

How do you think the in-house legal role will evolve in the coming years? 

In my view, the legal function is on the verge of becoming a prominent figure within the core management team of any organisation, providing a triple role: team player (business awareness), gate keeper (risk mitigator) and trust enabler (dealmaker and strategy designer).  

Being aware of these dynamics, together with prominent inspirational legal in-house leaders, at the end of 2022, I founded, as vice-president, GC Forum; a think tank and expertise hub that prepares the legal function for future challenges.  

Our aim for in-house legal professionals is to enhance their business acumen and fluency beyond their legal niche, since reality provides us with precious insight: success comes from combining skills and views, often from faraway fields of expertise.