Heineken Slovakia Legal & Compliance Director and board member Martina Ondrasova discusses her career, the realities of moving in-house, building a legal team from scratch, and the challenges and opportunities shaping the GC role in Slovakia.
CEELM: Tell us a bit about yourself and the career path you took leading up to your current role.
Ondrasova: I currently serve as the Legal & Compliance Director at Heineken Slovakia and am also a member of the management team. Before joining Heineken, I held the role of General Counsel at ABB, the Swedish-Swiss technology company, and worked as a Global Contract Manager at Tier, which later merged with another business. Prior to that, I was General Counsel and Legal Affairs Manager at E.ON and Gaz de France SPV in Slovakia.
My career began in private practice with the US-based international law firm Squire Patton Boggs, where I spent nearly seven years as an Associate, working in Brussels, Prague, and Bratislava. I graduated from the Faculty of Law and later earned additional qualifications from Cornell University’s summer program at the Sorbonne, focusing on business law, international sales, and arbitration. I am also a licensed advocate and a member of the Slovak Bar Association.
CEELM: What was the biggest shock when transitioning to the in-house world? On the flip side, what was the most pleasant surprise?
Ondrasova: I transitioned in-house from private practice to lead the implementation of the EU’s second and third energy packages. Over time, I learned that being in-house means truly being on the client’s side. You need to be privy to a wide range of information about the client’s mindset – understanding strategy, business objectives, internal structures, stakeholder needs, and customer expectations to effectively support the business.
You also need to understand the product or service in depth – its features, characteristics, and production process. Essentially, you become an evangelist for the product to properly identify and mitigate legal and business risks.
The biggest surprise was how much technical and operational knowledge is required – far more than in private practice. Another key difference is that while lawyers in private practice often produce lengthy memoranda, in-house counsel must deliver clear, concise answers on the spot, backed by sound judgment. Being a business partner and advocate for the company’s vision, working closely with internal stakeholders in a collaborative environment, is one of the most rewarding aspects of the role.
On the flip side, you quickly realize that you no longer have an army of support staff. Whether it’s legal research, specialized expertise, or administrative tasks, you need to be self-sufficient.
CEELM: How large is your in-house team currently, and how is it structured?
Ondrasova: Our team consists of four members, including myself. I oversee both legal and management responsibilities. We have a lawyer dedicated to compliance, another mid-senior lawyer, and an intern who is currently a law student.
CEELM: What has been keeping you and your team busy over the last 12 months? And what’s on the radar for the year ahead?
Ondrasova: Over the past year, my main focus has been building the legal team from scratch while simultaneously setting and implementing our legal strategy. This included onboarding new team members and developing strong relationships with each department to ensure legal can effectively support strategic implementation and business priorities.
Looking ahead, we’re working on our annual legal strategy update to ensure legal remains positioned as a strategic business partner. Internally, I’ve also been focused on supporting the team’s professional and personal development. Talent is hard to find in Slovakia, so retaining and nurturing talent is a critical investment.
Externally, we’ve been responding to major challenges such as increased regulatory scrutiny, evolving data privacy standards, AI risk management, and the shift in ESG requirements from optional to mandatory.
In addition to these external pressures, continuous improvement of our legal operations remains a priority. I believe the future lawyer will embrace AI, and I want our team to be ready for that shift.
CEELM: How do you decide whether to outsource a project or keep it in-house?
Ondrasova: The decision to outsource legal work to external counsel versus handling it in-house is guided by a structured framework that balances strategic priorities, resource capacity, and cost-efficiency. Primarily, my intention is that the in-house team members develop their practice expertise and gain more experience and bank legacy advice from external counsel, so they may build our internal library of knowledge, professional expertise, know-how, and understanding. By that they can empower their competence and confidence, gradually reducing reliance on external advisors and creating real value for the company. However, if a matter requires specialized expertise or is time-sensitive, we seek support from Heineken’s global legal network or external resources.
CEELM: When picking external counsel, what criteria do you use?
Ondrasova: We follow a specific framework and use established tools to evaluate potential partners. The key factors are high-quality advice, responsiveness, accessibility, speed, and cost-effectiveness. It’s also important that external counsel be easy to work with and able to integrate seamlessly into our processes.
CEELM: What do you foresee as the main challenges for GCs in Slovakia in the near and mid-term future?
Ondrasova: The regulatory landscape is becoming increasingly complex, and we must navigate both internal and external pressures. Soft skills – such as empathy, communication, and intuition – are becoming just as vital as legal expertise. While AI offers powerful tools, it also highlights the importance of the human element in legal work. I firmly believe that technology should not enhance the uniquely human qualities that define great lawyers.
Looking ahead, we must continue investing in ourselves and our young talents, developing new functional competencies to meet future challenges. Our goal is to provide high-level legal support while upholding the highest standards of integrity, ensuring we are enterprise-fit today as well as our successors in the future.
This article was originally published in Issue 12.7 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.