Could you share with us the story of your path to becoming an in-house counsel? What motivated you to choose this career path?

From the beginning of my legal career until today, I have always wanted to be a part of a large organisation. However, while working in various crowded and large offices, I realised that I wanted to work not only with my colleagues but also with people from different professions, benefiting from their experiences and being more social. For this reason, I wanted to switch to in-house consultancy, and consequently, I endeavoured to acquire the necessary qualifications to work in a place with such large and diverse opportunities. Possessing qualities such as teamwork skills, quick comprehension, prompt feedback, and effective communication were the necessary qualifications for in-house consultancy.

Even though I was at the beginning of my career, the feedback I received and various positive references played a significant role in my selection after submitting my application. In addition to being able to work with different people, other key factors were my desire to encounter and resolve various disputes and to gain experience across different and diverse fields. After I started working at Batıçim, I realised I had made the right decision.

In your role as an in-house counsel, what are the main responsibilities and tasks you handle on a day-to-day basis?

Within the group where I serve as legal counsel, there are seven companies operating across various sectors. These companies engage in cement-concrete production and sales, port operations, energy production and sales, and waste management. Additionally, two of these companies are publicly traded on Borsa Istanbul. With over a thousand group employees, my primary responsibilities and duties span a wide range of diverse areas.

First of all, as I work in a cement group, my role involves providing support on mining law, forest law, environmental law, overseeing administrative permits and transactions, assisting with export and import processes, preparing contracts, ensuring compliance with occupational health and safety legislation and harmonising it with company policies, and resolving disputes related to labour law.

Additionally, since we operate in the cement and concrete sector, I also handle issues pertaining to Competition Law. Furthermore, as we have two companies engaged in energy production and sales, I am responsible for overseeing administrative and commercial transactions arising from energy law.

Moreover, I handle significant commercial cases and administrative-tax law-related matters. In this regard, I also provide support to the prosecutor’s office. Since communication with external support-receiving offices is a significant aspect of the role, it is amongst the main issues I support.

As two of our group companies are publicly traded, I oversee the adherence to Capital Markets Legislation and all related secondary legislation, manage the execution of public disclosure processes, monitor board of directors’ meetings and decisions made, handle the execution and registration of general assembly processes, and ensure the compliance of all newly amended legislation with company policies.

Furthermore, I provide reports and monitor these processes for the board of directors and executive board.

What are some of the key challenges you have faced as a rising star in-house counsel, and how have you overcome them?

The aspect that I found most challenging in this regard was being one of the newest generation employees of a company founded in 1966. Since I was younger than other managers and almost the same age as their children, I had to make a lot of effort to change and improve the work I was doing when I first started, and to be accepted. However, as we spent long hours working on difficult tasks together, we got used to each other’s ways of doing and following each other’s work.

In this regard, I have realised how important of a skill it is to be able to communicate in a healthy way. I particularly feel that I have learned and developed significantly from my experiences with my managers here. For this reason, I now better understand how right my decision to become a legal counsel was and the reasons behind it.