Globally recognized market researcher, The Legal 500 is known for assessing the capabilities of law firms across the world – but this year in connection with Legal Business, GC Magazine and The In-house Lawyer, the organization focused its attention on recognizing in-house corporate counsels who are driving legal business forward – specifically in the Greece & Cyprus areas. Speaking to key partners at the leading law firms and in-house counsels across the globe, The Legal 500 identified the top 100 most powerful corporate legal advisers highlighting the best that the in-house market has to offer…and guess who made the list? OSM!
We are so proud to introduce our award winning in-house legal counsel – Georgia Demetriou.
Georgia is an experienced specialist with a demonstrated history of expertise in Maritime Law, arbitration, banking law and European law across multiple jurisdictions. Her in-house career in the shipping sector has as she states, ‘always been her passion’ – Beginning in early 2015, Georgia is now charge of providing training on all legal matters’ to colleagues and familiarising the OSM team with national and international laws and regulations in more than 30 jurisdictions where OSM is located, as well as commercial provisions in agreements with customers’. Internal processes she has overseen such as trainings, a new reporting information system and automation of tasks have helped improve the legal department’s functionality and efficiency, providing internal clients with ‘excellence in our services’ and ‘highly valued’ guidance.
Georgia’s career path in the shipping sector adds even more value to OSM as she has been recognized as one of the top shipping law practitioners over the past seven years. Additionally, Georgia is an honored member of the Maritime Studies Faculty of the Frederick University of Cyprus – she serves the organization as a special visiting lecturer, teaching the modules of Introduction to Maritime Law, Marine Insurance and Public International Maritime Law, supervising students on their thesis and developing pieces for publication.
Georgia has been an integral facilitator of smoother relations between business units, having managed to ‘narrow the gap between our operations and holding companies and maintain alignment with our other offices worldwide’. In addition to her commercially-astute legal advice to OSM, Demetriou is active in the company’s social responsibility initiatives including local community development as members of the UN Global Compact Network which OSM officially joined in 2017. Her credentials are further bolstered by her past academic career that saw her gain an LLB from the University of Sheffield as well as an LLM in international maritime law from the University of Wales, Swansea.
Georgia’s take on winning this notable award
How does this award support OSMs business efforts?
OSM is a top provider of quality third party management services – this recognition adds value to our company name as OSM can be seen for its strength across all its organizational departments. Nowadays many shipping companies are outsourcing their legal cases and OSM can proudly offer internal legal counsel backed with their recognition as a top provider. With this success we must strive to improve our reputation as a premier shipping company and to provide our services with integrity and reliability having the best people in key positions. I consider this success not only a personal success but also a success of OSM and I really thank OSM for the trust to be their Legal Manager.
Does receiving this recognition motivate you more in your position at OSM?
Of course! GC Powerlist recognizes in-house innovation, quality and excellence, so it is really prestigious to be one of the top as the Legal Counsel OSM. On the one hand I feel very proud to be among the best General Counsels and on the other hand I feel much more responsible to serve my role and this title with professionalism and excellence. The expectations now are much higher, but the sky’s the limit!
Why did you win this award?
There are so many different components to consider, but first and foremost it’s taken a lot of hard work. Combine that with the right focus, professionalism, team work, effective collaboration, great colleagues and valued trust from our management. All of this has added to my confidence and commitment to upholding the values of OSM.
What can this award to our customers in your eyes?
In OSM our mission is to contribute to our customers success, and this type of recognition is just one of many examples that show OSM go the extra mile to be our customer’s first preference to provide safe, high quality and reliable services. Everything starts in the legal department, so our customers can enjoy high quality legal services supported by a balanced commercial agreement. Most importantly, this type of award can ensure customers that OSM is in full compliance with international convention, including but not limited to, the four pillars of shipping as well as compliance with national laws and regulations of 30 jurisdictions in which we exist. What sets us apart from our competitors is our commitment to each and every contract we take on and our ability to make these contracts successful through our breadth of services and capabilities – but this award is like an extra stamp of quality assurance for all of our ventures.