Dunja Hasanovic, Chief Legal Officer of AMA Group, shares insights from her almost two-decade journey in the legal field. Today, she focuses on leading legal projects across the group and monitoring legal and regulatory developments that affect its operations, always working to support both compliance and business needs.
CEELM: Tell us a bit about yourself and your career path leading up to your current role.
Hasanovic: I’ve been with the company for quite some time now and long enough to see it grow into a regional network of creative, media, digital, and production companies. I joined the group as a Legal Officer, back when it was still in its growth phase. After a year, I was promoted to Head of Legal, and shortly after, took on HR responsibilities as well, becoming Head of Legal & HR. As the company expanded, including acquisitions across the Adriatic and Nordics, I took on regional legal and compliance responsibilities and became Legal and Compliance Director. In 2024, I was appointed Chief Legal Officer.
It’s been a meaningful journey with many challenges, opportunities to grow, and unforgettable moments, and I’m grateful to have been part of it.
CEELM: How large is your in-house legal team currently, and how is it structured?
Hasanovic: Our team in Belgrade currently includes three full-time in-house counsels. We also work closely with external law firms across the SEE region, depending on the jurisdiction.
We’re generalists by choice. In the past, we had colleagues fully dedicated to GDPR and DPO duties or labor law, but recently, we decided not to isolate roles. Instead, we restructured so that all team members operate as generalists. That gives us flexibility to rotate through any legal or compliance work as the workload demands, so no single person becomes a bottleneck if urgent matters pop up. That also keeps us agile and ensures that everyone understands the full legal picture of our business.
CEELM: What has been keeping you and your in-house team busy over the last 12 months?
Hasanovic: This past year, we completed a group-wide rebrand and name change, which was a massive compliance exercise in updating corporate documents for every entity across our region.
More challenging, however, has been our ongoing work related to the proposed amendments to Serbia’s Advertising Act. These changes impact many different sectors and industries, and consequently, the agencies that work with them. As the group operates across the creative, media, and digital sectors, our service is directly impacted.
At the same time, we’ve also been working on steps to comply with electronic archiving requirements, following the newly adopted legal framework and implementing an internal digital archiving solution.
In general, this kind of work shows how challenging and at the same time rewarding it is to work with creatives: designers, copywriters, strategists, who constantly push boundaries by the nature of what they do. Legal doesn’t have the luxury of saying “no” from a distance. We need to understand the intention behind a creative idea and find a legally sound way to bring it on-air.
In that sense, the old saying that in-house lawyers must “know the business” is not just a cliche. It’s a daily requirement. Without that understanding, the Legal Department becomes a blocker. With it, we become a true partner.
CEELM: What about the upcoming year?
Hasanovic: Looking ahead to 2026, our priority is on improving our internal legal tech. We developed a digital platform in-house during the pandemic for contract requests and approvals, and it proved so effective that we’re now rolling it out regionally.
We’ll also continue monitoring the Advertising Act proposal and preparing for implementation. Given the nature of our business, we’ve taken an active role, not just observing the changes but engaging in industry discussions, contributing to consultations, and preparing internal training programs so our teams are ready when the law is enacted.
Other priorities include continued alignment with ESG disclosure obligations and tracking AI-related regulatory developments. Both areas will heavily affect our sector and clients, and our job is to keep the business protected, but possible to move quickly.
CEELM: How do you decide whether to outsource a project or keep it in-house, and when picking external counsel, what criteria do you use?
Hasanovic: We make outsourcing decisions based on complexity, capacity, and specialization. Tasks that involve high risk, require niche expertise, or demand resources beyond our current bandwidth are entrusted to external counsel, ensuring the highest quality and efficiency. We also keep a list of “small but tricky” tasks that seem simple but carry hidden risks, such as those involving IP.
Our external counsel relationships are deeply rooted. So far, we have followed a market-by-market approach. This individual approach dates back some 15 years, when there simply weren’t any regional networks in this part of Europe. In some markets, we’ve worked with the same partners for over a decade. Sometimes we favor boutique firms that understand our business over large global brands. Sometimes, we prioritize continuity. In Croatia, for example, we stayed with the counsel we inherited during the acquisition because they knew the background. In Bosnia, we’ve worked with multiple firms over the years. It’s about loyalty and being practical. We value trusted partners, but we also stay open to change as the business grows.
CEELM: What do you foresee to be the main challenges for GCs in Serbia in the near or mid-term future?
Hasanovic: The biggest challenge is handling regulations without slowing down the business. Creative industries move quickly, especially in part related to digital services and data, so legal teams need to keep up without compromising compliance.
The proposed AI law, together with the EU AI Act, will require legal teams and companies to adopt new standards for transparency, accountability, and risk management.
In addition, remote work regulation and ESG transparency obligations are all emerging topics that will shape how in-house legal teams operate.
For in-house teams, especially GCs, this means expanding skills beyond legal policy, operations, and strategy. As AI becomes part of everyday work, the key challenge is making talent development meaningful by helping lawyers grow in ways that technology cannot replace.
This article was originally published in Issue 12.6 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.