An interview with Basak Gurbuz, Legal Director, General Counsel at Alliance Healthcare in Turkiye.
What are the biggest external forces or trends currently shaping your role as General Counsel and how are you responding to them?
Great question. The biggest external factor nowadays for us GCs is the constant and sometimes unexpected regulatory changes & challenges. There is a fast pace in the legal market, and the rapid growth might also have led to this. This is the reason we need to adapt a multi- faceted approach and ability as well as agility in a multi-disciplinary ecosystem.
Another important consideration to factor in can be seen in the economic challenges in the country which leads to certain shifts in the mindsets of business units. The number and revenue focused approaches might unleash challenges in legal compliance and processes which directly impacts how the legal department functions. This is why the in-house counsel should be a gate keeper and business stakeholder concurrently. Not to mention, the reason for our primary existence is to provide legal reassurance and compliance and an in-house counsel should always bear this in mind.
How are you balancing the increasing demands of legal risk management with the expectation to drive business value and strategic insight?
As mentioned above, this is the biggest challenge for us currently because the legal function, sitting as the backbone of the company, is expected to open all the gates for the business targets which simultaneously needs to keep all the gates clear. This is not always 100 % possible and, right at that point, the risk management chips in. I accept and opt for being a strategic business partner to the business unit (and the leadership), but responsibly.
There should always be a balance on i) what we can do; ii) could do by bearing some level of risk; iii) cannot in any case do.
It is also vital to correctly and transparently communicate this to leadership and business units. When there is a clear no, we should be designing an alternative solution if possible.
The legal function should not be perceived as a “no department” but an “enabling department” with the best possible legal conditions. Maybe we can name an ideal GC as a “legal enabler and protector” :).
What is one lesson or insight from your in-house journey that you wish you had known earlier and would share with a fellow GC today?
That is also a wonderful question. The biggest lesson I have learnt during my in-house journey is keeping the good balance between the legal field and business field; not to be seen as a blocker while you are trying to act in a legal capacity. When you speak the language of the business (numbers, timelines, customer impact, commercial trade-offs), you stop being a “legal blocker” and become a strategic partner. With that, you begin to earn trust: executives listen more carefully when they feel you understand what they’re trying to achieve.
