Multinet I Up Promotes Tuğba Güldemir Akın to Legal, Compliance & Audit Director

Multinet | Up, a technology services company, has promoted Tuğba Güldemir Akın to the role of Legal, Compliance & Audit Director. In this position, Akın will be responsible for overseeing legal and compliance matters across the company's operations.

Akın is a highly experienced legal counsel with a strong background in both retail and fintech sectors. Prior to joining Multinet | Up, she worked in the logistics, construction, and supply chain industries. She has expertise in European Union Law, Contract Law, Logistics Law, Legal Writing, Corporate Law, Litigation, and Enforcement Law. Akın holds an LL.M in European Business Law from Lund University.

With over four years of experience at Multinet | Up, Akın has held various positions within the company, including Legal Affairs Manager, Assistant Manager Legal, and most recently, Legal and Compliance Manager. She has also served as Secretary General of Board of Directors since September 2022.

What personal and professional skills do you believe are most important for your role at Multinet I Up? Can you discuss the role's challenges and benefits?

I think this question should be first answered by making a brief distinction between working as an in-house lawyer and working as an outside legal counsel.

In recent years, and especially with the rise of digitalization, the role of lawyers in corporate legal departments has shifted and updated. Therefore, an in-house counsel needs to adopt a new set of skills that enable them to serve as the company’s’ trusted advisor.

We, as in-house legal counsels, are likely to work with a wide range of people from different business units and varying levels in the company’s hierarchy. That means we need to navigate different personalities, backgrounds, and areas of expertise—such as human resources, engineers, accounting and finance, sales and marketing departments, executives, and other attorneys both internally and externally—as we try to figure out the best legal solution for the company. And, because we are internal to the company, we are always on call. Hence very strong communication skill is required since we generally form close relationships with the stakeholders.

You need to learn to be agile since work becomes more digital. Therefore, an in-house counsel should expect their practice to combine technology and business with the law. The legal function is now not only supposed to deliver advice submitted to protect the company but also to find new ways to generate a value-added service for the business. This requires lawyers to develop new skill sets as the business evolves and so learning agility.

The biggest reason why I like being an in-house lawyer is to work with different departments and to synthesize their perspectives with law. While working in a law firm, your duty and responsibility ends with the completion of that job, but while working in a company, you also have the responsibility to ensure that the processes are organized in accordance with the operation of the company. That's why, as a support department, it has been well said that in-house lawyers' perspective on law and the way they apply the law differentiates, and so their responsibilities as well as their influences are expanding.

As a matter of fact, during the preparation of a project, it is very important that you know the company culture, strategies, and dynamics very well, and that you are in contact with all relevant business teams and ensure that the necessary coordination is ensured while constructing this. However, the attorney ship and the internal audit functions are the professions that require independence; therefore, you need to draw your boundaries very well when you are acting as an in-house and to remind this to the executives when necessary.

Having a good network of people with the right information at the right time differentiates an in-house in a positive way in her professional development and career life. In this sense, collecting right people is one of the most valuable thing that cannot be bought with one or another.

At my current position, being in the executive part, increases responsibility for sure but when you see the work outputs it gives you more pleasure. Seeing that you started to approach the issues not only with "Lawyer Hat” but through the eyes of the different departments satisfies you both personally and professionally. Understanding the needs of different departments and meeting them at the middle point when necessary and your “solution-oriented” resulted with a value-added contribution is very important to reach a satisfactory success as an in-house lawyer as well as internal auditor.

Lastly it will be important to add that having a good knowledge of Legal English which I think still rare in Turkey and following the latest regulations and precedents as well as the practice is also very important.

"When I came to Multinet Up, I was very excited to work in a department where I could transfer everything, I have learned so far. It really did. Over time, my job description and responsibilities expanded, and various departments such as Compliance and Internal Audit were added. For this reason, I always had the opportunity to improve myself in Multinet Up and never felt like repeating myself.

I really consider myself lucky to work at a company that always opens a playground for me, allows me to take initiative when necessary, and contributes to my personal and professional development by uploading new challenges every time.”