Andria Papageorgiou Law Firm ANDRIA PAPAGEORGIOU Founder and CEO
Q Congratulations on starting your own legal practice (Andria Papagerogiou Law Firm), what made you go out on your own? Thank you, Paul, it is a great pleasure for me doing this interview with you, giving me the opportunity to be expressed and heard. From a very young age, I always wanted to be independent and my own ‘boss’. Probably this mindset was developed by the fact that I was raised by two workaholic entrepreneurs, my mum and dad. I remember my younger self during the summer months, when school was closed, always working at my parents’ family business (unrelated to the legal practice) to earn my pocket money. Spending so much time closed to them is a memory I will always cherish. Years ago, I had the idea of going out on my own at some time, but I was not courage enough to take the decision to make the first step, until recently when my daughter was born and I started thinking about it every single day. Suddenly, I started planning in my mind how some things could change and be better, how to make things in a different way for the general good, how to create an impact so others can follow. All I was thinking about was how achieve things from zero, so I can hopefully be my daughter’s hero one day. So, this is how my childish goal slowly became an idea and then a plan and today, this is, thankfully, my reality. I’ve had quite few jobs in my life, both in legal practice and financial services sector, but my favorites have been the ones where I’m working for myself. The others… not so much, although I am always thankful for the knowledge, experiences and wisdom gained out of them. Whenever I’ve had a “real” boss, I always found myself thinking that I could do things better, more efficiently or for less money. Usually, these ideas and suggestions were frowned upon by my supervisors. I guess no one wanted to hear ideas from the new ‘guy’, especially when you are a lady. It is tough to have your hard work and time rejected, especially when you only wanted to do what’s best for the client and of course the best interest of the business. Eventually this breeds resentment which in turn leads to plain ‘ol not-giving-a-damn. That is the worst
GAME CHANGERS Issue #34
employee you can have. I never wanted to be that employee, so I decided to put my own ideas to work and do things my way. I took the decision to start my own business, ready and willing to face all the ups and especially the downs. Q With so many high quality local firms out there, what are you adding to the ecosystem? The sky has infinite space for all the stars; hence I believe that there is space for everyone. Of course, what makes each one of us special and unique is how we handle our clients’ matters, because it is not only B2B and B2C; it is also H2H (i.e. human to human). Our practice is structured in such a way so as to offer our clients the opportunity to get a tailored and robust legal support with legal insight and a business instinct, where appropriate. Our target is to always meet or even exceed the clients’ expectations and always be at their disposal, providing them with less headaches. Q Is there a specific area you are focusing on? Currently, we are focusing on Corporate, Business, Banking and Finance, Employment, Real Estate, Intellectual Property matters, Corporate and Forex Litigation, Data Protection, Regulatory consulting (i.e. general compliance, AML etc.) and Licensing in EU and offshore jurisdictions. Q Having worked in FX for many years for various FX brands, do you think this helps you understand the FX legal framework better? Definitely. During the time I was working in various FX brands, I have the chance to cooperate with a lot of external lawyers (both local and international) who were struggling to understand how the general forex industry works. Working solely in legal practice, you tend to see things from a quite different angle, l acking sometimes significant business and operational insights; I used to be in that position once. Instead, if you experience things from both the in-house perspective and from the external lawyer’s angle, you end up with a growth mindset and you see things in a more spherical way, looking ahead to the bigger picture of matters.
