An interview with Hamdi Timucin Demir, Head of Legal & Compliance at Makyol in Turkiye.
What are the biggest external forces or trends currently shaping your role as General Counsel, and how are you responding to them?
That’s a great question. The way I see it, there are three main trends that are really shaping my role right now.
First, there is the globalisation of disputes. In a business like ours, a disagreement is rarely just a local issue anymore. So, my approach has been to get ahead of it with a proactive strategy. Having been a lawyer for the company in ICC and ICSID cases is one thing, but the experience of sitting on the other side of the table as an arbitrator was a real game-changer for me. It gives you a 360-degree view that lets you spot potential issues early and figure out the smartest way to protect the company’s interests before things escalate.
Second, the dynamics of project finance have completely changed. To get a multi-billion-euro PPP project funded today, you need more than a standard loan agreement. International lenders have incredibly high standards for compliance and how risk is shared. This has transformed the GC’s job from someone who just reviews documents to a strategist who helps structure the entire deal to be bankable from day one. To manage that, I have embedded my team directly with our finance and business development folks. So, when we’re working on a major project in a place like Oman or Romania, we’re not just negotiating clauses – we’re actively shaping the entire deal structure to make sure it’s attractive to investors and partners.
And that really leads to the biggest shift of all: the evolution of the GC into a true strategic business partner. The board doesn’t just want a lawyer who manages risk anymore; they want a partner who helps drive the company’s direction. They expect us to find a way to “yes.” That’s a principle I’ve built my whole career on. When I’m advising on a cross-border investment, my job isn’t just to point out the legal roadblocks. It’s to analyse how they will impact our business goals and help chart the smartest path forward.
How are you balancing the increasing demands of legal risk management with the expectation to drive business value and strategic insight?
It’s the classic challenge, right? How do you protect the company while still helping it grow? For me, the answer is running the legal department like its own business, using what many now call a “Legal Ops” mindset. The goal is to make legal a resource that helps the company grow faster.
A big part of this is cost-effectiveness. Of course I manage legal risks, but I also manage a budget. We must be smart about how we spend money, especially with external law firms. We find creative fee arrangements for routine work so we can invest our resources in the best advisors for the high-stakes issues.
Another key part is empowering our business units. We cannot be a bottleneck. It’s just not efficient for my team to handle every small issue. So, we give our commercial teams the tools and training they need – good templates, clear guides – to handle routine matters confidently themselves. This frees up my top lawyers to focus on the complex, billion-euro negotiations where they can add the most value.
And finally, technology is a huge part of this. Modernising our processes is key to efficiency. By using tools like contract lifecycle management, we speed things up and get better data for our risk analysis. It helps transform legal from a department that slows things down into a partner that provides solutions.
What’s one lesson or insight from your in-house journey that you wish you’d known earlier and would share with a fellow GC today?
You know, early in my career, especially back at the law firm, I really saw myself as a legal technician. My job was to find the ‘right’ answer. When a dispute came up, my focus was squarely on building the strongest legal argument to win. Things felt very black and white.
But that perspective completely changed when I moved in-house to a place like Makyol, dealing with these huge, multi-billion-euro international projects. I had to quickly learn that in the real world of business, there is almost never a single ‘right’ answer. What you usually have are several legally defensible paths, and each one has a completely different set of commercial risks and rewards.
I think about it like this: let’s say we run into a major issue with a subcontractor on a big project overseas. The old me would have immediately said, “Our contract is solid, let’s take them to arbitration.” But now I know that’s just scratching the surface. I have to ask the bigger questions. What about negotiation? Sure, arbitration might get us a win on paper, but it will cost millions and take years. What if that subcontractor is a key partner for our next three projects in the region? Is it worth burning that bridge? A quick, negotiated settlement might get the project back on track and preserve a vital business relationship.
And even if we do go to arbitration, how we handle it says a lot about us. Do we go in aggressively, or do we leave the door open for a settlement? That decision impacts our reputation in the market. Do we want to be known as litigious, or as a tough but fair partner who finds solutions?
This is why the biggest lesson I have learned is that the best in-house lawyers aren’t legal encyclopedias; they’re strategic navigators.
And that’s the advice I always give to other GCs. Don’t just walk into the boardroom with a legal analysis. Give them a strategic map. Lay it out for them: “Look, Option A is arbitration. We have a 70% chance of winning, it will cost us X million, and it will take two years. That business relationship is over. Option B is negotiation. We might only get 80% of what we want, but we can have it settled in three months for a fraction of the cost, and we keep a key partner for the future.”
At the end of the day, our real value is not just steering the company to the safest legal harbour. It’s helping it chart the smartest course to its ultimate commercial destination. It’s about blending that legal expertise with financial literacy and real strategic foresight.
