Inside Insight: Gabriela Popescu of Microsoft

CEELM: Please walk us through your career path leading up to your current role.

Popescu: I am a trained Romanian lawyer who graduated from a law school in Bucharest back in 1990. Regarding my career, I’ve always been an in-house counsel. I was a university student in Bucharest just after the Romanian Revolution when significant changes were happening in all aspects of our lives. At that time, the scope of a law graduate was being redefined. As a student, I decided I wanted to work for a big company, but I was not sure what this meant exactly. It might have been a stroke of luck or destiny that I saw an advertisement for Coca-Cola hiring new graduates. I decided to apply, leading me to start working at Coca-Cola as an entry-level legal advisor before graduating from law school.

It was a great time when I got to learn a lot. Despite learning a lot of theory in law school, I had little practical experience, which I could only gain from working. What probably gave me a competitive advantage at that time was my fluency in English. The role at Coca-Cola was a combination of legal and public affairs at the time, and we didn’t know too much about such work in Romania. After two years at Coca-Cola, I was recruited by another major company, Colgate-Palmolive, where I spent the longest period in my career – 17 years. When I started, the company had two factories and over 1,000 employees, presenting a very complex and dynamic work environment. The Romanian market was just being shaped in 1996, with many things to establish, including working with distributors and unions in a new economic landscape – so there were many things to do, relating to diverse fields of activity.

During this time, I realized the importance of understanding business operations, prompting me to return to school. This led me to pursue an MBA to expand my understanding of businesses. As a General Counsel, I saw my role as that of a business partner – so attending an MBA was the right thing to do at that time. Working for such a significant multinational company was an incredible learning experience. The company had a great organizational culture, and together with my colleagues we all received extraordinary training and formed a strong community.

After 17 years with Colgate-Palmolive, I made a significant industry shift to pharmaceuticals, which was an important change, given the industry’s sophistication. After a lengthy interview process, I joined Novartis Pharma company as Head of Legal and Compliance. I worked there for five years. As this is a highly regulated industry, it was a significant professional change requiring me to learn everything from scratch. This stage of my career was challenging but essential for my growth, helping me develop both professionally and personally.

In 2017, I moved to Microsoft, which was again a significant industry change for me. Coming to Microsoft felt like I had finally found my place. The learning curve was immense – and it still is – while being surrounded by sophisticated professionals, in an industry that is changing at an extraordinarily rapid pace. I started as a Legal Director for Romania, expanded my activity further to cover 25 countries, and since July last year, I took over my current position, of Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs lead for Central Europe, where I focus more on government affairs activities, in addition to the legal ones.

CEELM: Between your different roles in the in-house world, what were the most pleasant aspects of your work?

Popescu: As a lawyer, I love tackling complex problems and breaking them down into manageable pieces. This brings me great joy and professional satisfaction, especially in government affairs and public policy.

I enjoy identifying market issues, such as why businesses avoid certain products, and creating holistic plans to address them. This involves understanding the problem, engaging stakeholders, and developing a comprehensive strategy to overcome the respective situation.

I noticed that from a legal perspective, solutions might often come quite rapidly, while public policy activity takes much longer until a result is achieved. Identifying an issue is just the first step; it can take years to see the final outcome, requiring structured efforts over an extended period.

CEELM: How large is your in-house team currently and how is it structured?

Popescu: Our in-house team is structured differently from traditional legal teams. We have a vertically integrated structure with specialists in areas such as privacy, data protection, healthcare, and financial sectors. Although these colleagues are not formally included in the Central Europe team, they support the teams across various regions.

CEELM: How do you determine whether to outsource a project or utilize internal resources and what factors influence your choice of external counsel?

Popescu: When a project involves specific Microsoft knowledge, our internal team is fully equipped to deal with it. For projects where local market insight is needed, we bring in external lawyers. The external lawyers’ teams work with our in-house team, ensuring a blend of internal expertise and local understanding. Within the EU, we adjust our approach based on regional differences, always involving local lawyers to grasp market specifics.

When selecting external counsel, the agility of the respective team is essential and, sometimes, more important than knowledge, which can be accumulated. The fast-changing nature of our work demands flexibility. From my experience, knowledge can be learned, but the agility of the law firm, availability, and desire to address new topics is crucial. For new, unprecedented projects, I choose a law firm that is flexible and eager, even if they might not have all the needed expertise at the time. A lawyer must understand new laws and market trends, and approach issues holistically – and I managed to develop strong relationships with agile and skilled lawyers in Romania over time, who also consider these skills essential for their growth.

CEELM: What has been keeping you and your in-house team busy over the last 12 months? What about the upcoming 12 months? What are you keeping on your radar that you think will impact your workload the most?

Popescu: Given the specifics of the industry that I work for, digitalization legislation and projects at country levels and, of course, artificial intelligence topics, are high on our agenda. These are very important projects, that involve both governmental affairs as well as legal work – and they keep our agenda full.

CEELM: Looking at the future, what do you anticipate as the primary challenges for General Counsels in Romania in the near to mid-term?

Popescu: Talking about Romania, we have an amazing community of GCs. Once seen as a unilateral role, GCs here are now business partners, consultants, and board members, so there is a lot on their plate. Romania is lucky to have such skilled professionals.

If I look at the industry where I work, artificial intelligence is going to keep us busy. The challenge of AI does not only come from this technology being available but also from the need to understand that its use must be done cleanly and responsibly, in compliance with clear ethical principles.

One of the other challenges I also see professionally covering more than 20 countries comes from the speed with which new regulations appear and the professional need to be aware of everything that is happening – the challenge of time, if you will.

Overall, I believe GCs have a crucial advisory role in these times and, regardless of the industry where we work, it will be an intense period for all of us.

This article was originally published in Issue 11.5 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.