The Lawyer Who Turned Manager in New York
"I am convinced that having a Bocconi law degree, which combines economic and legal disciplines, was fundamental for propelling my career and putting me in my current position." Rossana Bellina, a 33 year-old from Milan, graduated from Bocconi University, and then from the Fordham University School of Law, with a specialization in Banking, Corporate and Finance Law. For a few months now, she has been working as Managing Director and General Counsel of MARLI New York, a high-end jewelry designer based in Manhattan with a branch in Dubai, whose products are distributed in the US, Canada, and the Middle East.
"I have always wanted to get job experience abroad," Rossana explains, "and when the opportunity arose to join an incredibly international law firm like Shearman & Sterling and move to New York City, I took it on the fly." Rossana Bellina became specialized as an attorney working in finance thanks to her previous professional experiences at Simmons & Simmons in Milan, and at Shearman & Sterling in Manhattan. "New York's market for financial and legal services is very efficient: operations start suddenly and are closed in a matter of few hours, although there are some similarities with the European market. However, it you want to work here, you need to study common law and the US legal system." Rossana finds her current professional challenge very stimulating; in a sense, her job fully represents the opportunities that only a global city like New York can offer: "I am responsible for both the legal and managerial aspects of the company, something which is new for me. In Italy, I don't think I would have made the leap to management; I would have probably remained in a corporate law firm, a kind of work I really enjoyed doing. MARLI is a young company; it was born in 2014", Rossana continues, "but has a solid background. I was identified as the right person to guide its expansion strategy." No matter how difficult the challenge, Rossana is ready to face it: "I started to train myself for this in my college years, because Bocconi pushes you to be fast, healthily competitive, and ready to seize opportunities. My career really started there."