Compliance trainee Victoire putting her learnings into practice

I am Victoire from France and I joined Metso Outotec's Compliance and Risk team in January 2022 as a trainee. I passed the French Bar examination last November and this internship is part of my curriculum to formally join the French Bar. In France, future lawyers are required to do an internship outside of law firms for a period of six months before going back to school for another period of six months. My major subject being business law, I naturally decided to do it in a company. I also wanted to reiterate my experience in Finland because I did an exchange in Turku three years ago and found a lot of interest in the Finnish culture.

The work environment in an international listed company is particularly interesting. As a global actor, Metso Outotec is committed to the highest ethical standards and expects its customers to do the same, which makes the compliance work particularly relevant. The daily interactions with Metso Outotec employees from all around the world are a great opportunity to learn about other cultures. I found the Finnish approach to work at Metso Outotec enjoyable because it mixes efficiency and seriousness while emphasizing on the importance of having hobbies and passions outside work, as well as a good work-life balance.

The recent tragic crisis in Ukraine marked a turning point in my daily tasks, with the focus on constant and recurring analysis of the latest sanctions against Russia. It was interesting to see how effectively the compliance, legal and trade compliance teams were acting in terms of organizing and reaction when urgent actions were needed. I appreciated the trust I was given and the benevolence of my managers who were always able to allocate me time to answer my questions and were particularly caring on my workload.

I learned a lot during these six months. First about compliance regulations, which I had studied but never had the opportunity to put into practice. This area of practice shows the significant improvement the companies have made towards enforcement of ESG principles. Sanctions were also part of my daily work. It is a remarkably interesting mechanism, strongly linked to politics, which could be described as a non-violent economic measure used to restore and/or maintain international peace and security. Companies are the key actors in this, by complying with sanctions, they make the mechanism effective.

I also learned about Metso Outotec's modus operandi, which means our promise for safe work. As a lawyer, I appreciate the fact that we all work as a big team, in the same stream. In law firms the clients are constantly changing, and it is hard to find the time to get to know their people, their values, their products or services and the way of working. During my traineeship at Metso Outotec, I had the chance to learn about this specific industry, which can be hard to understand for someone without much engineering background. Together with the Legal & Compliance team, I even had the chance to visit the filter factory in Lappeenranta and get hands-on look at the environment and the employees' daily tasks.