About

Legal affairs director Özlem Akyüz Atamer leads a legal team of five at Kale Holding, a conglomerate that initially pioneered the ceramics industry in Turkey but now invests in machinery and equipment manufacturing for a diverse range of industries including defence, chemistry, electrical appliances, energy, IT and transportation. As stakeholders of the Kale Group of Companies, and in order to provide effective legal support to its 18 companies, the team is divided into litigation and corporate parts. The former handling law suits, debts and claims of the companies in Turkey, while the latter provides a proactive approach to legal and contractual solutions to business units by managing and negotiating commercial contracts, advising on the impact of legal developments and driving up the standards of commercial and legal awareness in companies. With good internal communication, the team manages legal risks at the beginning of the transaction. In one rare instance, the team provided legal advice to prevent Kale Holding from making any investment in some Middle East countries due to a lack of legal protection and detailed legal research in some local companies. One internal achievement of the team, which has facilitated greater efficiency, is the creation of computer program on contract management which procures approval of every related department and senior management to a contract before signature. ‘Our legal team puts its “initial” to every contract, which means the contract is controlled and revised legally by a lawyer in our team’, explains Atamer. The team has also gained recognition for dealing with the diverse regulations that come with working for a conglomerate that operates internationally in a number of sectors. Ensuring good communication lines exist internally is key for Atamer as she explains: ‘the competence of our team is very high for communicating and negotiating with colleagues all around the world. Therefore, we are involved directly with business transactions abroad and guided through them with our foreign colleagues’.