“Resourcefulness, Resilience & Rigor: 3 qualities to be a successful Legal Expert.”

Discover our Qonto Insiders of the month: Luke O’Leary, Legal Expert at Qonto.

1. What did you do before joining Qonto (education, professional experience etc.)?

Before joining Qonto, I spent eight years working for international law firms, mostly based in London but also spending some time in New York and Paris. I worked in a variety of fields but mostly specialized in bank finance and private equity transactions. Essentially, this was helping companies raise money, either by borrowing money from a bank or receiving direct investment, and advising the financial institutions who were making the investments.

I grew up in London and studied Classics at Oxford (the study of the literature, history, philosophy and language of ancient Greece and Rome). One of the great benefits of the English education system is that your career options are not really limited by what you study at university. That approach really benefited me as I loved studying the ancient world and how we became who we are today, but I had no idea at the age of 18 what I wanted to do with my life!

2. Why did you join Qonto?

I’d been thinking for several years about joining a startup, as friends were working for VC firms or startups already. I was especially interested in fintech as I’d seen first-hand the problems that need solving in the financial world, and once my wife and I decided to move to France, Qonto seemed like the obvious choice. I’d been following Qonto since they raised their Series C and the more I researched the company, the more impressed I was, both by what had been accomplished and by the enormous market opportunity that exists for a B2B fintech focussed on business accounts and finance management solutions. There are 25 million SMEs in Europe alone and a really small number of players who are purely focused on the business market. Qonto’s growth in only 4 years is impressive but I saw how much more opportunity there is still to grow and I knew that would allow me to grow with it.

3. How would you summarize the recruitment process?

It’s a rigorous process, which is a good thing. There was a lot of time and care put into it by the Talent Acquisition team and by my manager, Alexia. They really try to get to know you as a candidate and make sure that you’ll be a good fit on both aptitudes for the job and as a person within Qonto. I think this is reflected in the quality and character of the people you see throughout the company.

4. What stood out for you about the onboarding process?

The onboarding program is designed to give you a real insight into how Qonto’s business runs, to allow you to get to know the other people starting in your cohort and to make you feel at home. My experience was a little particular as I joined while COVID measures were still in place and only a portion of my onboarding was in person. I’d say that despite this, it didn’t stop me from getting to know a lot of people in the company very early on.

5. Tell us about what you do as a Legal Expert at Qonto.

As a Legal Expert, I work on the whole range of legal issues that we encounter as a fast-growing business in a regulated sector, solving problems in a way that allows the business to grow fast while avoiding unwelcome surprises down the line.

Because of this, in the Legal team, we are often the link between multiple different teams from around Qonto, whether it’s the Product, Growth, Finance, Risk & Compliance, People team, Founders’ Unit or Operations (sometimes all of them at once).

I work a lot with the Product team, providing legal advice on how to set up the products our clients use, while still complying with legal restrictions; I work with the Strategy team on strategic projects like introducing savings accounts or loans for our clients (through partners). I also work with the Risk & Compliance team on issues concerning our regulatory obligations and I work with the Founders’ Unit on corporate and shareholder issues (e.g. fundraising and investor relations).

6. What are the qualities required to be a successful Legal Expert?

The key qualities are the three ‘R’s (Resourcefulness, Resilience, Rigor) combined with a business head and emotional intelligence.

• Resourcefulness because there are frequently times when the answer to a legal problem or the resolution to a situation will not be simple. You need to be able to adapt and use your experience and judgment to make the right call.
• Resilience because the job of a lawyer in a fast-growing fintech is demanding, the work complex and the deadlines often very short. As amazing as this job is and as fun as it can be, there are challenging times and you need to have the ability to navigate the highs and the lows.
• Rigor because as a Legal Expert, your advice needs to be grounded in the law as well as being grounded in reality. Your advice is taken very seriously by the teams around the business, so you need to make sure it is well-reasoned but also takes into account the business goal of the project.

Having a ‘business head’ is for me the most important quality — I’m a strong advocate for breaking down the traditional stereotypes that a legal team is ‘just a legal team’ that only slows things down or only looks at the law detached from the reality of what we’re trying to build.

In fact, a legal team is a business partner, that should help streamline every aspect of the business; it’s the oil that allows the wheels to turn smoothly, if you will. How do we achieve this? By being as integrated as possible, as early as possible, in every area of the business. This means you need to understand the business, what the business goals are and balance your legal recommendation against the commercial objectives. There are potential risks associated with every aspect of running a business — what you need to be adept at in an in-house legal team is assessing that risk in the context of the wider business priorities.

Finally, emotional intelligence is also key — as a link between so many teams with so many different priorities and pressures, it’s crucial to understand these dynamics and tailor your advice accordingly.

7. How would you summarize your day-to-day life as part of the Qonto Legal team?

I suspect my answer here will be a familiar one to Qonto Insiders readers: no two days are the same! However, I begin each day by setting out my Goals of the Day on our Kanban board (these are a subset of the Weekly Goals that we also set ourselves in the Legal team). In terms of what I spend my time on, I could be attending a planning meeting for a new Product feature (e.g. savings accounts, rapid payment transfers, flash cards), negotiating a contract with an external banking partner, liaising with the regulatory team on communications to our regulator (ACPR), or working with the operations team analyzing contracts and how we could improve a service or get more from our service providers. There’s an English saying that ‘variety is the spice of life’ and that is 100% true at Qonto!

8. What has been your biggest challenge and/or greatest success as a Legal Expert?

My biggest challenge has been adapting to working in French at least 50% of the time. Before Qonto, I spoke and understood French well but had not worked in it. My role as Legal Expert is to cover the French market as well as international markets and it was therefore a challenge to get up to speed at the beginning. But it was a fantastic challenge and there’s no better way to improve quickly!

It’s still early days in my time at Qonto but I’m very happy to be increasingly a ‘go-to’ person in the company for people’s legal questions. It shows that firstly people know who you are but also that they trust you to help them solve the legal issues that they are having.

On a more personal level, the fact that people hold meetings with me in French without thinking twice about whether to switch to English is a minor personal triumph! Although everyone would just as happily hold meetings in English too and a lot of meetings at Qonto are in English as a default.

9. Which of Qonto’s 4 values (Ambition, Mastery, Teamwork, Integrity) resonates with you the most and why? What do you appreciate most about the Qonto Way?

Mastery resonates for me the most — it’s been really impressive how high the standards are throughout the company and how much people push you to be the best you can be. There’s an intellectual rigor here that is great for personal development — it’s all very well to have the right answer but you need to also be able to justify why it’s the right answer. This makes the role of Legal Expert very challenging, since you are dealing with such a wide range of topics, but it’s also guaranteed to make you a better professional. As you might be realizing, there’s a theme in these answers of me enjoying a challenge!

10. If you could speak to future Qonto candidates, what would you say?

• Know the business as well as you can before applying. That means, for me, following the company in the press and social media, reading the blogs and asking people in your network what they think of us; know also the market in which we operate and how the business model at Qonto works.
• Be open to the variety and unpredictability of the job. We’re building a company that changes the way things have been done for decades, so there will be surprises and resistance along the way.
• Enjoy the work. What we’re doing is new and exciting, and finding solutions to problems that have a tangible effect on the product we deliver to our clients should be very motivating!
• Always be curious. Curiosity is one of my favorite character traits in a candidate/colleague. To always ask ‘why?’ and not stop until you’ve understood is a quality that will stand you in very good stead for a career at Qonto.

11. Do you have a fun anecdote you would like to share about your time at Qonto?

Moving to France, one of my greatest fears was that I’d struggle to find people to talk to about cricket, one of my favorite sports! Lo and behold, on my first day, one of my fellow new-joiners, Aditya, turned out to be a huge cricket fan. It was at that moment I knew I’d come to the right place: a fast-growing, super ambitious, international fintech where I could grow personally, professionally…and also find fellow cricket-lovers!