CEE Legal Matters’ Consummate Professionals: Ron Given and Bora Kaya

CEE Legal Matters’ Consummate Professionals: Ron Given and Bora Kaya

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On April 5, 2022, at CEE Legal Matters’ CEE Deal of the Year Awards Banquet in London, Ron Given and Bora Kaya were announced as the first-ever winners of CEE Legal Matters’ Consummate Professional Awards.

The Consummate Professional Awards were created by CEE Legal Matters to recognize lawyers in Central and Eastern Europe in both the in-house and private practice worlds who have, over the years, established reputations for outstanding professionalism, intelligence, kindness, and skill, as well as demonstrating a significant commitment to the development of the legal professional in the region. Winners possess remarkable legal skills in their own right, as well as a commitment to assisting other lawyers in their growth and development, providing superior service to clients, and a for treating their peers – both on their own side on the table and, when circumstances call for it, across from them – with respect and dignity.

The selection of Given and Kaya as the first two recipients of the award was simple, according to CEE Legal Matters Managing Editor Radu Cotarcea. “When I and my team began the process of reviewing potential winners, those names leapt out immediately,” he said. “Our relationship with Ron stretches back many years, even before we formally launched CEE Legal Matters back in 2013, and we became close with Bora soon thereafter. Both of them have, over the years, demonstrated an awareness of what we are trying to do in growing a community of internationally-minded lawyers in the region, and a commitment to helping us do it. Indeed, both of them have contributed their services every year on an unpaid basis as judges of our annual CEE Deal of the Year Awards, and both were again on this year’s Final Selection Committee. We could not be more impressed with them, on both a personal and professional basis, or happier about making them the first-ever recipients of the awards.”

Ron Given first moved to Central and Eastern Europe in the fall of 2008 as the Managing Partner of Wolf Theiss Zagreb, after spending almost 30 years at Mayer Brown in Chicago and a year as Senior Vice President and General Counsel at a NASDAQ-listed, Bermuda-based international insurance holding company. Taking advantage of his unique mentoring and leadership skills, Wolf Theiss began asking Given to assist in other offices across the region, and in 2013 he became Resident Senior Partner in the firm’s Prague and Kyiv offices, then in 2015 took over as Managing Partner of the firm’s office in Warsaw. A full profile of Given’s role with Wolf Theiss appeared in the June 2015 issue of the CEE Legal Matters magazine.

In the spring of 2019 Given moved back to the US as Wolf Theiss’s U.S. Representative (which occasioned an interview with CEE Legal Matters about his time in the region), but he returned to CEE only six months later, this time in Prague, as CE Senior Legal Counsel at Deloitte Legal. In the fall of 2020 he made a permanent return to the United States, and he now serves on the Advisory Boards of Confidox VDR and Samson Atlantic, and is the Manager for Legal Affairs at Spectrum3, Inc.

According to Given, “having lived in, practiced law, and helped grow law practices in Zagreb, Prague, Kyiv, and Warsaw over the course of more than a decade, it meant a lot to me to be recognized, along with my good friend Bora Kaya, with a Consummate Professionalism Award at the Deal of the Year Awards Banquet.”

Bora Kaya’s career began in 2006 with an in-house position at Turkey’s Eregli Iron and Steel Works Co. After six years he became the Head of Legal at Ronesans Holding A.S., and in 2015 he accepted a position as Managing Legal Counsel at GAMA Power Systems Engineering and Contracting, Inc., a role he also assumed of Gama Industry in 2018. In April of 2020 he became the Head of Legal at GAMA Holding A.S. – a position he continues to hold today.

Speaking of the award, Kaya recently noted on social media that “this accolade was one of the most valuable awards I have been given so far. One that proves allegiance, friendship, benevolence, and meticulous hard work pay off. I felt so honored, happy, and distinguished.” 

CEE Legal Matters would like to thank Bora and Ron for their years of friendship, assistance, and commitment to the growth and development of the CEE legal community at large.