Franca is a highly qualified lawyer, negotiator, mediator and advisor with an excellent business background and acumen, and a solid track record at top levels in large global firms and multinational organizations. She is able to operate in ambiguous and unclear business and legal environments, as well as in established regimes. Based primarily in Lagos, Nigeria, she currently works as a Consultant providing legal management and business advisory services throughout Africa and in other parts of the world. She recently launched her mediation practice in Nigeria known as “Raffles Mediation Chambers Ltd.” which compliments her role on the panel of the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization. As a member of the Singapore Bar, she also holds the position pf “Consultant” to Global Law Alliance, where she continues to advise clients.
Franca has a degree in business from McGill University (B.Com.), and law degrees from New York University (L.L.M. in Business Law), National University of Singapore (L.L.M. in International Comparative Law) and Universite d ’Ottawa (L.L.L.). She is qualified in both the Roman civil law system as well as the English common law, both of which she uses in her work in Africa. Her professional career spans over 30 years, initially in areas of corporate and commercial law, corporate governance, contracts, cross border M & A, infrastructure, and foreign investment law. Since 2016, her work also focuses on technology law, fintech, AI, cryptocurrency, blockchain and compliance (international anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, CFT). She has worked in top tier firms such as Norton Rose and Stikeman Elliott, and then her own firm of Consilium Law Corporation. In her role as Tyco International Ltd.’s (a Fortune 500 US company) General Counsel for Asia, she had responsibility for 257 entities in telecoms, healthcare, fire & security and electronics, and oversaw compliance of trade, boards as well as anti-bribery.
In the past, Franca has held prestigious board, committee and other leadership positions with MNC’s, SME’s and start-ups, as well as in social and government institutions. She is on the International Advisory Board of McGill University’s Faculty of Management, where she lectures regularly, as well as acting as an Executive in Residence at the David Laidley Centre for Ethics & Equity, and is a collaborator with the Lagos Business School in Nigeria where she also lectures.
Franca was recently awarded the Sovereign Medal by Canada’s Governor General (representing the late Queen Elizabeth II) and has in the past been the recipient of many other awards for her professional excellence and personal contributions to society. She is fluent in English, French and Italian, and is a Naija wife with three adult sons.