The Bench Welcomes Paolo Pianezze to the Telecoms Team

The Bench welcomes Paolo Pianezze back to The Bench to join the leading TMT team as co-Head of Telecoms and to lead the firm's fractional General Counsel offering. Paolo is a dynamic senior legal advisor with more than 25 years of international experience. He has worked both in private practice for international law firms (Simmons & Simmons) and in-house and advisor for various multinational companies (JBF, Seacom, e&, Telecom Italia, Oger Telecom and TT Mobil) and various SMEs.

Paolo returns to The Bench after completing a three year full-time project for one of the UAE's leading telecom operators, in the course of which he led the advice to the company on a highly strategic transformational project and advised its infrastructure, international and national wholesale businesses.

Paolo brings to The Bench a distinguished track record in corporate advisory. Over his career, he has advised clients across Europe, Middle East and Africa on complex cross-border debt restructuring, commercial, finance and M&A transactions. Furthermore Paolo brings with him an extensive experience in leadership as general counsel and a wide-ranging experience as advisor on corporate governance matters.

Joby Beretta, Director of The Bench commented "Paolo's experience spans TMT, M&A and finance, making him a very versatile and valuable addition to The Bench. Paolo will play a key role in strengthening not only the organisation’s international corporate advisory offering but also our fractional GC services".

“I am excited to join The Bench at such a dynamic moment in Dubai’s economy evolution,” said Paolo. “The Bench is a hub for innovation in legal services and, with the firm's forward-thinking leadership, I look forward to contributing my international legal experience to support its growth and that of its impressive client base.”

The Bench's TMT team is consistently recognised as amongst the best in the UAE (including Leading Partner and Band 2 firm ranking for TMT in Legal 500 TMT UAE). Legal 500 2025 commented:

“Commended for its ‘exceptional industry knowledge’, The Bench is jointly led by Kelly Tymburski, Jouhayna Amr, and Salio De Souza. Tymburski is noted for her strength in data privacy obligations, and Amr has over two decades of experience in digital banking and payment matters.”.