What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

The number one challenge that has impacted me over the past year was the economic instability in the country and inflation increases all around the world. As being part of a global organisation, we had to take into account the global rules in terms of the inflation and also the country’s needs whilst trying to sustain and grow the local business in an environment with increased levels of employee turnover rates. All of these changes have required the legal and compliance department’s help and support including the works that have been done to be in line with company’s global rules and local legislation, reviewing of fee arrangements in client contracts and increasing the compliance knowhow of the new hires.

In your opinion, what areas should in-house lawyers focus on over the next few years to prove value to their organisations in Türkiye?

Leadership skills, team building, being a team player, ESG, risk management, compliance, diversity and inclusion.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

Creating a centre of excellence as a region improved our legal teamwork, as it reduced local legal colleagues’ workload. As a region, we have created a centre of excellence in trade sanctions, privacy, and third-party provider areas consisting of volunteer in-house legal colleagues all over the region to support legal advice on various topics both to business and also to the relevant local legal colleagues. Local colleagues directly contact these groups if they have any concern or questions on one of these topics. Another example to an innovation that improved our local legal teamwork was to implement internal DocuSign approval process with the help of O&T department for some documents, procedures which needed paperwork burden and e-mail reminders.