Gaston Bilder

Paris, France

I enjoy providing legal and commercial advice to business people acting in highly competitive environments. I have been doing this for over 18 years since I have always been interested in completing complex transactions, and in helping people accomplish their goals and elicit common interests. I particularly enjoy working with highly autonomous teams and/or very close to decision-makers, i.e. where each step taken in the right (or wrong) strategic direction is highly visible and where the impact of decisions is known almost immediately.

I am a "business partner", more of a deal creator than a deal maker, that offers advise concerning risk exposure, mitigation actions, how to cope with and ultimately monitor residual risks; and about how to create and implement management systems that cover all these activities. I am frequently involved in complex international transactions, where I try to take a holistic approach and to keep the big picture in mind: connecting all the dots, coordinating work between different disciplines, focusing to the maximum extent possible on all details, while trying to translate these concepts into results-oriented negotiation strategies.

I value the opportunity of contributing multi-disciplinary financial, commercial, project development and legal knowledge and skills to challenging, fast-paced projects that provide a chance to work with and learn from experts. I then try to transfer what I learn from these experts about best practices, near misses and failure, into the most efficient (best in context) rendering of legal services, into sound commercial advise and knowledge for the management of legal teams.

I appreciate cultural and regulatory differences, and enjoy testing management theories. I am a team player, and like sharing lessons learnt and coaching other people so that they may succeed in reaching their objectives. I excel in major crisis situations, in bet-the-company type of challenges and at negotiating in hostile environments, since I am an adrenaline-junkie.