Member Voices: George Alexandris
George Alexandris
New Key Contact Partner
Bahas, Gramatidis & Partners LLP (Greece)
1. Briefly describe your practice.
I co-lead the corporate and M&A practice at Bahas Gramatidis, advising corporates, private equity and investors on transactions, corporate reorganisations, corporate governance and market entry into Greece. I'm dual-qualified in England and Greece, and I spent almost a decade practising in London before returning to Athens. And that shaped how I work more than anything else – clients on a cross-border deal should feel one standard, not two.
I came to corporate work through dispute resolution, and I've never quite left it behind. Having spent years arguing about what a clause was supposed to mean long after everyone who drafted it had moved on, does change the way you approach negotiations and transactional work. And occasionally, I do enjoy a good argument when things have not worked out as intended and the parties find themselves in front of a tribunal. Therefore, I still work on selected disputes, mainly arbitration.
Alongside my practice, I serve as Deputy Managing Partner of the firm, which means I am also heavily involved in the firm's strategic direction and all of its non-legal functions. I've spent the past two years together with our Managing Partner, Yanos, rebuilding this firm for its coming years, and I find the two roles feed each other. Being actively involved in running a business teaches you a great deal about advising the people who run one.
2. Bahas, Gramatidis & Partners has maintained an active presence within World Law Group. As a new Key Contact Partner, what are you personally most looking forward to as you begin cultivating your own relationships within the network?
Singapore was only my second summit, which by the standards of this network makes me very new indeed. It didn't feel that way though. I walked in and found people I'd met once or maybe twice previously, but was able to pick up a conversation as though no time had passed. By the second evening it had the character of a family gathering rather than a conference. I hadn't expected that to happen so quickly.
Some of that is the firm's doing rather than mine. Bahas Gramatidis has been part of WLG for many years, and Yanos Gramatidis, our Managing Partner, has been the face of it throughout. I discovered in Singapore how well he is known and how highly he is thought of – I lost count of the number of conversations that opened with someone asking after him. Those are considerable shoes to fill, and I'm not pretending otherwise. What I can do is make sure the relationships he built stay alive, and that the ones I build sit alongside them rather than replace them. Continuity is the entire point.
Part of why it works so well is that the partners who come are the ones who stay. The person across from you was here last year and will be here next year, which changes what a conversation is worth. Nobody is performing for a room they will never see again. It makes for a more honest gathering than most legal events.
So what I'm looking forward to is straightforward. Deeper relationships with the people I've already met, and new ones with those I haven't. Real collaborations and business that moves in both directions – not only work coming into Greece, but our clients and our people reaching outwards through the network. In this regard, Greece sits at an interesting point on the map at the moment. Industries such as energy, defence, and infrastructure are currently in high demand and a fair amount of capital is looking for a home. My ambition is that member firms think of Athens, and of us, the moment a matter touches this part of the world, and that our clients feel they have a firm in every jurisdiction that matters.
That's the real strength of WLG. Continuity that turns a referral network into something closer to a global firm.
3. You recently attended WLG | summit Singapore. What were some of your key takeaways from the summit, and how did that experience shape your vision for collaborating with fellow member firms moving forward?
Three things stayed with me.
The first came out of the roundtables. Whether the subject was fixed fees or cross-border collaboration, every conversation landed in the same place. Clients want certainty on price, and they are right to. The firms that thrive will be those that can offer certainty without underestimating the work to get it. Therefore, precise scoping, honest use of historical data, and technology are key factors to bring value to a client. What struck me was how little jurisdiction mattered to this diagnosis. The pressure is universal even where the market structures differ.
The second was a single phrase from the accountability session: "follow-up". A summit generates a great many good ideas and very few of them survive the flight home. The ones that do are the ones somebody chased. I am trying to make this my operating principle for the network, and it's an unglamorous discipline that I suspect separates the members who get value from the summits from those who merely attend them.
The third was Ho KwonPing's closing keynote. He argued, in effect, that we are living through a global power rebalancing rather than a decline, and that the centre of gravity is returning to where it sat for most of recorded history. What made it valuable wasn't the geopolitics, which one can read anywhere. It was the reminder that our clients' business world is being redrawn while we advise them, and that a lawyer who understands only the law is advising on half the problem. That's precisely what a network like this is for. Between us, we have people who can see the whole board.
Berlin can't come soon enough.
Berlin can't come soon enough.
4. Outside of your professional work, what do you enjoy doing to recharge or find inspiration?
Old records, mostly. I collect vinyl and remain unshakeably convinced that an album heard in its intended sequence is a different work from the same songs on shuffle. Someone sat down and decided what came after what, and that decision was part of the art. Usually with a Negroni to hand, which is something I take more seriously in the making than I should. Then it's films and experimenting in the kitchen.
And road trips. There's something about distance that clears the mind in a way nothing else manages. The miles do the work for you, and you then arrive somewhere you've never been before and experience yourself how other people live. I think what I'm actually after is the unknown. My working life is spent removing uncertainty for others, and it turns out I need a fortnight a year of the opposite. I'm taking an RV out this year with my family. I've already packed the essentials: my playlists, a fishing rod, some linen shirts, and anything a proper Negroni requires. The destination seemed the wrong thing to be certain about.