About

For Ruba Unkan, legal affairs director at Sabancı Holding, the largest industrial and financial conglomerate by profit in Turkey, every day offers a unique challenge due to the diverse nature of the company. ‘We are supporting Sabancı Holding and its numerous subsidiaries with only a limited number of lawyers, working on many big ticket deals at the same time’. Since the beginning of the year the small team of three transactional lawyers has worked on two potential SPOs and ten mergers and acquisition/joint venture related deals. These have run alongside the business-as-usual legal work that comprises things such as IP, arbitration and contract review. The aspect of her role that gives her the most satisfaction is being part of the business and seeing her advice having a direct impact on the decisions. When selecting an external counsel, quality of advice and time efficiency are the most important factors for Unkan. ‘We work with outside counsel around the world and those who can summarise a point of law in a short but concise e-mail instead of a 10 page memo are those we return to for advice’.