About

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last two years?

I have been involved in a Competition Authority investigation within the cargo and logistics industry, as well as the post-acquisition Integration of TNT into FedEx Express, covering responsibilities within South Eastern Europe region.

What will be the main focus for the company in the next 12 months and how do you intend to assist with this?

The company will focus on the completion its post-acquisition integration of TNT into FedEx Express, which will see the integration of legal entities, assets, workforce, process and procedures. The legal function is at the core of all the integration activities, from planning to implementation, to ensure compliance with local laws, company policies and the code of conduct. All this means a structural change, as well as a cultural change, in a very dynamic industry and regulatory landscape.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

Business acumen, a holistic view and enjoying the daily business is the way to success. Understanding what the business is about, is the key to transform the in-house legal function from being an “in-house law firm” into a “business partner”. Using the privilege of having an overall view of the company structure and its operations, positions the Legal function as one of the strategic advisors and partners of the company. Lastly, I think one would excel on whatever is done with passion and enjoyment. Making the effort to keep up with the daily matters while enjoying it, would be right way to create a sustainable and effective way of creating added value, both for the company and its customers.

What “legal tech” products do you currently utilise, and do you foresee implementing more of these in the near future?

A series of legal tech products are still to be implemented as part of the integration process that the Company is going through. In a functional organization which has a complex international hierarchy for authorizations and approvals, contract and document approval system will be one important tool to facilitate the required alignment on urgent matters. Document tracking and archiving systems are also of importance, when it comes to manage the legal function of a business where thousands of documents, such as air way bills and consignment bills, are produced and used on a daily basis.

Have any new laws, regulations or judicial decisions greatly impacted your company’s business or your legal practice?

Our business touches many regulatory areas, from postal services regulations to information technologies, from civil aviation rules to liabilities imposed by cross-border compliance rules and so on. In order to keep up with the pace of digitalisation and especially data privacy regulations, it is important to anticipate the upcoming changes and regulations, in order to ensure process readiness both process and infrastructure wise. The continuous changes to the regulations of Turkish Information Technologies Agency and Bulgaria’s Commission for Consumer Protection can be given as example to this transformation.

What do you feel are the most effective techniques for getting the most out of external counsel, in terms of how to instruct them?

Identifying what you need in-house, in order to make more efficient the work of the external counsel. Your external counsel will never know your business and its problems better than you, therefore, translating/transposing the problem requiring the legal study, in anticipation of the external counsel’s research, would be important to make the most out of the external counsel.  On the other side, measuring the level of the external counsel’s services is key to track the overall performance of the external counsel and fine tune it according to the changing needs of the Company would be very useful.

FOCUS ON: Integrity and ethics

Keeping your word and keeping integrity.

For most of the multinational companies doing business around the world, it is important to manage not only “what” but also “how” the company operates. At FedEx, we are no exception to this. In fact, the top down message from the senior leadership and the company’s commitment to keep the “purple promise” is the concrete example of how a multinational and multi-jurisdictional company strives to excel not only in its service commitment to its customers, but also in keeping the integrity and compliance within and beyond its own working environment. Having worked in various multinational companies, I could witness that the “compliance attitude” of such companies contribute very much to the overall compliance environment of the societies they operate. It is the same for FedEx, which runs a daily operation of shipping approximately 16 million packages worldwide, with its 450,000 employees, covering 220 countries and 99% of World GDP, this commitment goes well beyond of meeting the legal or regulatory requirements. Creating awareness on legal compliance with a strong emphasis on Ethics and Integrity, gives us the chance to contribute to the overall compliance of the society we do business in, which in turn comes as an added value that is invisible to eyes but becomes a heritage for future generations. It is without doubt that the Legal function is the flag carrier of the Company in this pursuit and as a member of the team responsible to keep such word of integrity, I feel proud to serve not only FedEx, but also the community we live and work in, to create a better social environment for the generations to come.