My name is Tatiana Samokhvalova. I come from Northern Russia, near the boarder with Norway. 10 months ago, I joined Societe Generale in Paris as a financial lawyer. Or to put it more exactly, I work for OPER/OTC/CLM in SG CIB and am frequently in contact with SEGL/JUR and various business lines such as CORI. That doesn’t help, does it? But it gives you an idea what awaits new Societe Generale employees!

Each entity and each department here has its own acronyms and abbreviations and getting to recognise and understand them is one of the more surprising sides of the induction process. It may well be the same in other large Groups but I wouldn’t know, as I’ve never worked in such a large Group.

To start with it was quite complicated. For example, I was once asked to contact the PCRU. I looked thought the internal directory but found nothing; it was only then that I learned that PCRU was an abbreviation. However, I soon got the hang of it. I already speak five languages, so I considered this as learning a sixth!

Another thing that struck me when I joined Societe Generale was the number of colleagues here at La Défense. I knew everyone in my previous company, but here it’s very different – I sometimes feel that I meet someone new everyday! Luckily there was the Group induction day in June, called StartinG, which brought together the 1,500 colleagues recruited over the last year. So that gives you an idea of the size of the Group! StartinG not only improved my general knowledge of the Group and its strategy but also gave me the opportunity to meet people who I’ve since had to work with on various assignments, which makes working together much easier!

So to conclude, I’ll break down what I do into more simple terms: I work for the Group’s Corporate and Investment bank, in the department which negotiates master agreements for future derivatives. I am therefore in frequent contact with the Group’s legal division and various business lines including the one that is direct contact with our clients. My work is very interesting and combines everything I was looking for: an international experience in the legal field where I get to negotiate and work with a wide range of contacts. Eventually I’d like to work directly with Russia. As Societe Generale is very present there, who knows…