Ioana Vieru

Ioana Vieru

Law, learned in Bucharest and Paris.

Business, learned in a decade of deals.

Regulation, written where none existed.

17+years in law

100+transactions and due diligence exercises

$1.34bnNYSE listing, run from inside the company

40+subsidiaries opened worldwide in one year

Now you can scale without limits, and never ask who is carrying it legally.

I built the legal infrastructure behind UiPath’s rise into one of the fastest-growing technology companies in US history: opening more than 40 subsidiaries worldwide in a single year, doubling headcount, and scaling corporate and compliance functions to match a company moving faster than most legal teams can keep up with. I did the same as we moved toward the company’s next milestone, preparing UiPath from the inside for a $1.34 billion NYSE IPO, one of the largest software listings in history.

“Ioana amazed our IPO advisers. What usually takes six months to prepare, at UiPath was already done, and that was down to her prior M&A experience. She amazed me with her pragmatism, her elegance in handling legal matters as much as corporate politics, and she was one of the most important pillars of UiPath’s growth. Her legal knowledge, her fun, her emotional intelligence, I’m grateful for all of it.”

Daniel DinesCo-Founder & CEO, UiPath

Now you can build the future, and let me worry about whether it is legal.

Some of the most innovative products in fintech and crypto did not exist in any regulator’s rulebook when I started working on them. I have secured approvals in Europe for products no one had evaluated before: a crypto card, MiCA-compliant stablecoins, and a full MiCA licence from the National Bank of Portugal. If your idea is new, that is exactly the kind of problem I solve.

“Ioana was there for us from the start. During challenging times, and good times. When there was no legislation for blockchain and the entire regulatory path was slippery and uncertain. She has a remarkable ability to stay composed and clear-headed under high pressure. That ability matters more than people realize when you’re building something this new. Excellent legal expertise, doubled by an ability to understand the actual goals, and help clear the path to make it a reality.”

Beniamin MincuCo-Founder & CEO, MultiversX

Now you can negotiate to win, without losing the relationship.

I have closed more than 100 M&A transactions, and the ones I am proudest of are the ones where both sides walked away feeling like they had won. Anyone can defend a client’s position. What sets me apart is that I close the deal: smoothly, elegantly, in a way that leaves the other side feeling like a partner, not a casualty.

“When MultiversX acquired Utrust, I was on the other side of that table, the CEO of the company being bought. That’s not always a comfortable position, but Ioana led the transaction with real command: legally sharp, strategically clear-eyed, and genuinely thoughtful about how the integration would actually work once the deal closed, not just how it looked on paper. She leaves no stone unturned. Deals like that live or die on the details, and she handled ours with pragmatism and real emotional intelligence, the kind that makes a hard transition feel like it’s being led by someone who actually understands your business, not just the contract.”

Sanja KonVP Europe, Circle (previously CEO, Utrust)

“Ioana was on the buy side when UiPath acquired ProcessGold, and I was on the sell side, but she has a way of making even the other side of the table feel like a partner. She wasn’t the type to drag out a negotiation to make a point, she’s a true closer, focused on getting the deal done well for everyone.”

Erik-Jan van der LindenSeed investor. Entrepreneur-in-Residence Eindhoven University of Technology, ex-CEO ProcessGold

Now you can stop worrying, the moment you pick up the phone.

A legal problem feels bigger when you are facing it alone. My job is to make sure you never are, whether I handle it myself or bring in the right specialist from my own network of collaborators. Most people call me stressed. Most people hang up calm.

“I came to Ioana in the middle of a stressful conflict with a former partner. She has such a calm voice, she made me feel like everything was under control, like I could hand this off and go back to running my business, knowing someone was genuinely taking care of it.”

Paul FarhiFounder & CEO, Solidus AI Tech

“We are so happy to have the chance to be represented by Ioana! Beyond being an excellent lawyer, she has a gift for anticipating problems before they land. This is very valuable: not just to have your requests solved, but also someone by your side who can plan a strategy. We felt that she can turn ‘we have a problem’ into ‘we’ve got this.’ And let’s not forget how she ALWAYS greets us with a kind smile. Thank you.”

Vlad BabencoManaging Partner, Studio 55 Beauty Salon

Lucian BratuPresident Intercoiffure Romania, Co-Founder Studio 55, Bucharest

My story

A career built on translating between two sides.

It began with an injustice, ran through a decade of deals, and ended up somewhere nobody had written the rules yet.

The startBucharest & Paris

Where it started

I decided to become a lawyer because of an injustice, not an ambition. When I was young, my father was betrayed by a business partner, cheated in a way the law should have prevented and did not. I remember thinking, even then, that I wanted to be on the side that makes those things right. That single moment set the direction for everything that followed.

I studied law at the University of Bucharest, but I did not stop there. In parallel, I pursued Political Science, and later a degree in Law at Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, through the Franco-Romanian Legal College of European Studies. For a long time, my plan was not corporate law at all. I wanted a career in diplomacy, and I thought the combination of law and political science was the way to get there: an internship at the Conseil d’État in Paris, another with Gide Loyrette Nouel, a foundation built for a life spent negotiating between nations rather than between companies.

2009NNDKP

The M&A years

Diplomacy gave way to something else: business law, and specifically M&A, a field I chose precisely because it refused to specialize. I joined NNDKP, one of Romania’s top law firms, in 2009, straight from the benches of law school, and for close to ten years I lived inside deals. More than 100 transactions and due diligence exercises, across energy, pharma, food, IT, hospitality. Every industry that does business in Romania eventually crossed my desk. Within a year of graduating, I was reading about my own deals in the newspaper.

Looking back, those years were something like a professional war. Not in the sense of conflict, but in what they demanded: composure under pressure, fluency across jurisdictions, the ability to sit across from sophisticated VCs and PE funds and hold my own. It is where I built the instincts I still rely on today, and for which recognition does not cease to come.

2018UiPath

Law meets technology

By 2018, having seen nearly every industry from the inside, I knew what I wanted next: the intersection of law and technology.

UiPath found me at exactly the right moment. I joined as Global Corporate VP before its Series D, when it was on its way to becoming one of the fastest-growing software companies in history.

The next four years were building, at speed: more than 40 subsidiaries opened worldwide in under a year, the company’s headcount doubling, the corporate and compliance infrastructure constructed largely from scratch. Then, in April 2021, the IPO. A $1.34 billion listing on the NYSE, one of the largest software IPOs ever. I ran the legal side of it from the inside, start to finish.

Throughout, I kept building the bridge between legal and tech, automating the legal function itself rather than talking about it. And I never abandoned my M&A journey either: I handled all of UiPath’s acquisitions, working closely with the Corporate Development team in the US.

2022MultiversX · xMoney · xPortal

Into the frontier: blockchain, crypto, Web3

After the IPO, I looked for the next frontier at that same intersection, and found it in blockchain. The last five years, as General Counsel for MultiversX, xMoney and xPortal, have been spent building legal and regulatory architecture for products that had no legal box to fit into yet: stablecoins, crypto cards, tokenized real-world assets. I have led some of the first approvals of their kind in Europe, submissions to the National Bank of Romania and the National Bank of Portugal that traditional, conservative regulators had never been asked to consider before.

What draws me to this space is the same thing that drew me to law in the first place: the belief that regulation, done well, is not a wall but a door. My work has been to open that door for products the world had not yet decided how to classify, including on stage with Deloitte at xDay, and in a longer conversation about what it means to be General Counsel of a blockchain company.

Looking back, I never quite left diplomacy behind. I just found a different embassy. Twenty years ago, I imagined myself representing countries at a negotiating table. Today I represent something else: the innovative products and business models that do not yet have a seat at the regulatory table, translating them into a language regulators can trust, and translating regulators’ concerns back into something founders can build around.

It turns out the girl who wanted to work in diplomacy did. She just ended up as an ambassador for stablecoins, tokenization and MiCA instead of for a nation.

The threadWhy it matters

What emerging technology actually changes

Somewhere between the automation work at UiPath and the blockchain work that followed, the question I was being asked changed. It stopped being “is this allowed?” and became “what could we do if it were?”

That is the honest description of what emerging technology does to a business. Artificial intelligence, blockchain, digital assets and this new generation of fintech are not features you bolt onto a company that already exists. They change what a product is, who holds it, how value moves between people, and which of your processes still need a human in the middle. A payment becomes programmable. An asset that used to sit in a registry becomes a token that can be divided, transferred and settled in seconds. A check that took an analyst a week becomes a model that runs continuously.

Regulation has been slower than all of it, and that gap is exactly where my work sits. I spend my time reading a new product honestly, deciding what it genuinely is under the law rather than what it resembles, and then building the structure that lets it exist legally instead of waiting for a permission that may never be written. I have done that for tokenized real-world assets, for stablecoins backed by EUR, USD and RON, for a card that spends crypto at a supermarket till, for a wallet with a cash account behind it, and for AI used inside regulated processes such as AML and KYC. None of these had a settled answer when the work started. Most of them have one now, partly because a small number of us went first and argued the case.

I make that argument in public as often as I am asked to: on panels that finally put government, business and technology people in the same room, at an international conference on resilience, in conversations about what AI is doing to cybersecurity, and alongside the teams actually building it.

The reason I care about all of this is simple. These technologies decide who gets access: to payments, to credit, to ownership, to markets that used to be closed. Handled badly, they concentrate that access further. Handled well, they widen it. Turning them into something concrete, a licensed product, a structure that holds, a business someone can actually run, is the part of this job I would not trade.

TodayBeyond the title

Beyond the title

Colleagues who have become close friends call me “Saint Ioana”, a nod to how I show up in the room when things get difficult: calm, steady, unshaken in a hard regulator meeting or a tense negotiation, until the deal closes or the licence comes through.

I am ambitious, and I love the dynamism of building something new, but I have never lost the instinct that started all of this: using what I know to make things right, and now, to make new things possible. Some of that happens on a stage rather than at a desk, moderating the conversations I wish someone had been having when I started.

And I do not practise alone. Behind me is a network of collaborators in tax, finance and technical advisory, and lawyers across the US, Asia and Europe, so that a question outside my own expertise still gets a real answer rather than a shrug.

Regulation, done well, is not a wall but a door.

Ioana Vieru

On camera

In her own words.

Play

Trouble playing it here? Watch on YouTube.

“Ioana gave me the space to focus on vision and product, not operations. She took so much off my table, the structuring, the operational detail, and built enough operational thinking into her legal work that running the business side never felt like a burden. She’s a big part of why our lines of business got off the ground at all.”

Lucian TodeaEarly-Stage Investor & Entrepreneur | 200+ Startup Investments, Co-Founder and ex-COO MultiversX

“Ioana is an excellent communicator, and she led a team of people spread around Europe, US and Asia. She was one of the people who built the real bridge between our Romanian and US cultures, and she made what could have been a rocky transition, as UiPath’s leadership shifted from Romania to the US, genuinely smooth. Beyond her legal contribution to the company’s growth, she has a real feel for cultural nuance, and she kept our legal team, spread across Japan, India, Europe, and the US, cohesive at a moment when almost everything else at UiPath was in motion. That’s leadership.”

Brad BrubakerChief Legal & Administrative Officer, UiPath

“Ioana was my first manager at UiPath and she made me feel welcomed during an important transition in my career. Starting a new chapter can be daunting, but her warmth, positivity and generous support made it feel much easier. Working with her helped me find my footing, grow into my role and develop as a legal professional. I’m genuinely grateful for everything I learned from her and for the positive impact she had on my journey.”

Cristiana BaltagSenior Legal Counsel, UiPath

Client voice

What it is like to work with me.

In the words of founders, investors, colleagues and counsel on the other side of the table.

“

“For me, Ioana is Saint Ioana. That says it all.”

Vijay KhannaGrowth Leader | Built UiPath from $40M to $1.8B+ ARR and a $1.5B IPO

“Ioana amazed our IPO advisers. What usually takes six months to prepare, at UiPath was already done, and that was down to her prior M&A experience. She amazed me with her pragmatism, her elegance in handling legal matters as much as corporate politics, and she was one of the most important pillars of UiPath's growth. Her legal knowledge, her fun, her emotional intelligence, I'm grateful for all of it.”

“Ioana has worked with me on more than I could easily list, complex contracts, corporate structuring, the parts where corporate decisions run into tax and financial considerations, trademark registrations and IP protection, regulatory compliance matters. What sets her apart isn't the breadth, though, it's that she consistently sees a problem coming before it exists. More than once, she flagged something and offered a solution before I even realized there was a question to ask. That's a different kind of value than fixing what's already broken.

She also brings something you can't really teach: a genuine energy, an optimism that's visible in how she works, not just what she says. You can tell that for her, this isn't just a job, it's something that comes from inside her. Her passion for the law, and for actually serving the people she works with, is visible in a way that changes the outcome. When someone does what they do because they feel it's their way of contributing something real to the world, not just because it's their job, you get a different result. That's what working with Ioana feels like.”

Stefan IrimiaCo-Founder at Inspired Life Circle | Co-Author of The 7 Universal Laws.

“Ioana has been our General Counsel for close to five years now, across the whole MultiversX group, and if you want to understand the full range of what she can do, I'm probably one of the few people who's actually seen all of it. There's no corner of our legal needs she hasn't touched, crypto compliance and regulatory approvals, M&A when we've acquired companies, corporate structuring across multiple jurisdictions, IP protection through our entire rebrand, employment matters as the teams grew. Most lawyers specialize. Ioana has had to be excellent across all of it, at the same time, for years, because that's what a company like ours actually needs.

What makes that possible, I think, is that she makes legal concepts and issues understandable, she never hides behind jargon to seem indispensable. She's a genuinely great negotiator, a strong team leader, and just as strong a team player, which is a rarer combination than people assume. And she's stood by us through the hardest stretches, moments with no legal precedent, real regulatory uncertainty, real pressure, unshaken, calm, with crisis-management instincts I've come to rely on completely.”

Lucian MincuCo-Founder & CIO, MultiversX

“Ioana was there for us from the start. During challenging times, and good times. When there was no legislation for blockchain and the entire regulatory path was slippery and uncertain. She has a remarkable ability to stay composed and clear-headed under high pressure. That ability matters more than people realize when you're building something this new. Excellent legal expertise, doubled by an ability to understand the actual goals, and help clear the path to make it a reality.”

“Ioana and I have worked together across a number of matters, and it's never felt like the usual client-and-outside-counsel setup, we work shoulder to shoulder, as a team, on the problem in front of us. Her legal knowledge is genuinely strong, in crypto, blockchain, and Web3 as much as in M&A, and it's a pleasure to team up with her rather than simply advise her. What we really share, beyond any single deal, is a passion for emerging technology and for startups, for finding a way to put genuinely innovative things into boxes that weren't built for them yet.”

Andrei Burz-PînzaruManaging Partner, Reff & Associates | Deloitte Legal; Head of Deloitte Legal, Central Europe

“Ioana was a client of ours at Dentons, we worked together on several transactions, including matters in the Netherlands, but it never felt like the usual client-and-outside-counsel dynamic. She has real M&A instincts, and she brings an energy to a deal team that's hard to describe until you've worked with her: optimistic, genuinely curious about whatever is new in the space, and always pulling the team together rather than just managing it from above. We worked like one team on a shared project, not like a law firm serving a client. That's rarer than it should be.”

Martin FanningPartner, Dentons UK & Middle East (Commercial & Technology)

“Why put yourself in Ioana's hands? Because she has the passion and the spark in her eyes that tell you she genuinely loves finding a smart solution and getting the deal done when most lawyers would have already put their pens down. That's what keeps her going and probably what keeps her awake at night”

Bogdan VăduvaGroup Chief Financial Officer, eMAG (previously Partner, KPMG Romania)

“Getting xPortal listed on Apple Pay and Google Pay should have been straightforward, until you realize their approval processes are built around rigid, pre-existing boxes, and our product never fit neatly into any of them. We sit at the intersection of regulated and non-regulated services, e.g., a non-custodial wallet with features that don't map cleanly onto anything Apple or Google's compliance teams had seen before / at the time. For a long time, that ambiguity was exactly the kind of problem that kills a listing before it starts. Ioana found a way through it anyway, she's fast, she's pragmatic, and she has a real gift for finding the argument that makes an impossible box suddenly fit. She finds the right balance between keeping the company safe and pushing the business forward, and I've seen her do it under real pressure, not just in theory.”

Sergiu BirișSerial Entrepreneur | Ex Co-founder of LiveRail (acq. by Meta for $500M), ex-CEO xPortal

“Running an e-money issuer under the National Bank of Romania's supervision means every product decision has a compliance dimension, and Ioana's depth on that side is genuinely rare. She knows PSD, e-money regulation, and our supervisor's expectations as well as anyone I've worked with, and she translates that knowledge into decisions we can actually act on, not just legal opinions that sit in a drawer. What I admire most is her maturity in finding that sweet spot: protecting a regulated business without ever treating compliance as a reason to say no to growth.”

Laura EnacheCEO, Capital Financial Services SA

“Ioana is honest about where her own expertise ends, and that's exactly why nothing stays unsolved. She doesn't try to be the answer to everything herself; she has built a genuinely global network of collaborators, lawyers and consultants across the US, Asia, and Europe, covering litigation, IP, competition, whatever the problem calls for, and she brings in the right person the moment she needs to. The result is that no issue ever just sits there. That combination of self-awareness and a real network behind her is rare in a lawyer, and I admire it.”

Ehsan AhmadiCEO & Founder, Vox Solutions

“When MultiversX acquired Utrust, I was on the other side of that table, the CEO of the company being bought. That's not always a comfortable position, but Ioana led the transaction with real command: legally sharp, strategically clear-eyed, and genuinely thoughtful about how the integration would actually work once the deal closed, not just how it looked on paper. She leaves no stone unturned. Deals like that live or die on the details, and she handled ours with pragmatism and real emotional intelligence, the kind that makes a hard transition feel like it's being led by someone who actually understands your business, not just the contract.”

“Ioana brings structure, deep knowledge, and real focus to every deal, along with genuine emotional intelligence. We've shared the stage on a few conference panels together, and she's always one of the most substantive voices in the room.”

Tony RomaniM&A Consultant, Investment Committee Member / Columbia Business School / TEDx Speaker

“Ioana was my first manager at UiPath and she made me feel welcomed during an important transition in my career. Starting a new chapter can be daunting, but her warmth, positivity and generous support made it feel much easier. Working with her helped me find my footing, grow into my role and develop as a legal professional. I'm genuinely grateful for everything I learned from her and for the positive impact she had on my journey.”

“I was invited by Ioana to speak at a MultiversX conference in Bucharest. I recall the energy she brought into the room, her command of the substance and her organizational skills. She has an infectious optimism about where this industry is headed, and she is a genuinely smart voice connecting people to each other.”

Lord Jack McConnellMember of the House of Lords; former First Minister of Scotland

“Ioana gave me the space to focus on vision and product, not operations. She took so much off my table, the structuring, the operational detail, and built enough operational thinking into her legal work that running the business side never felt like a burden. She's a big part of why our lines of business got off the ground at all.”

“Ioana connected easily with people and helped UiPath sustain a genuinely relentless pace of growth, navigating a constantly shifting environment, including no small amount of internal politics as our Romanian leadership team gave way to a US one. She handled all of it with elegance, and made sure every stakeholder, me included, felt truly supported by the legal team. Through her, legal never felt like a blocker, it felt like an enabler of the business.”

Mihai FaurChief Information Officer, UiPath (former CFO)

“We are so happy to have the chance to be represented by Ioana! Beyond being an excellent lawyer, she has a gift for anticipating problems before they land. This is very valuable: not just to have your requests solved, but also someone by your side who can plan a strategy. We felt that she can turn 'we have a problem' into 'we've got this.' And let's not forget how she ALWAYS greets us with a kind smile. Thank you.”

“Ioana is one of the most well-known and respected lawyers in Romania, not just in the legal community, but in the broader business market, including during her years at UiPath. She's a substantive, credible voice, a strong negotiator, and remarkably easy to connect with, a rare combination of firmness and warmth.”

Paul WoodOwner, Apple Search & Selection

“Ioana is an excellent communicator, and she led a team of people spread around Europe, US and Asia. She was one of the people who built the real bridge between our Romanian and US cultures, and she made what could have been a rocky transition, as UiPath's leadership shifted from Romania to the US, genuinely smooth. Beyond her legal contribution to the company's growth, she has a real feel for cultural nuance, and she kept our legal team, spread across Japan, India, Europe, and the US, cohesive at a moment when almost everything else at UiPath was in motion. That's leadership.”

“Ioana took a joint venture that was still genuinely undefined, a lot of blurry, unresolved elements, very early-stage discussions, and turned it into an MOU that captured exactly the structure we needed. Translating something that unformed into precise legal language is not easy, and she did it well.”

Corina LascuRINF.TECH CEO, AVERIS AI CEO

“Ioana supported me through a lot, including my relocation to Austria. Everything was new at the time for both of us in UiPath, pre and post IPO, and we learned it together. She never behaved like a boss, she worked shoulder to shoulder with me, even though I reported to her.”

Alexandru LascuGlobal Risk & Insurance Director @ UiPath | ARM, CPCU

“Ioana and I connected instantly. We were going through a chaotic stretch at UiPath, the center of power shifting from Romania to the US, everyone unsettled, and she was a real support, but also a friend. Despite the cultural distance between an Australian and a Romanian in a corporate environment, we found ways to laugh together, even in meetings, and to make people around us feel okay. We made a good team.”

Marie MyersEVP & CFO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (former CFO, UiPath)

“Ioana is easy to connect with and a genuinely knowledgeable lawyer. Her knowledge of the Romanian legal system, coupled with her first hand experience with a listed public company in the U.S., would make her a great asset to a Romanian company looking to grow overseas or a western company looking to take advantage of the great opportunities that exist in Romania. As a fellow Romanian and someone who regularly straddles those two worlds, I know the value she can bring!”

Lucian BoldeaPresident and CEO, The Timken Company

“The acquaintance with Ioana dates to my UiPath stint where we both worked together. While working for UiPath, Ioana and I have successfully executed numerous projects for a diverse range of legal and secretarial topics. Being part of her team, honestly, I've been skeptical initially. In a couple of months though, we both nurtured a robust working relationship. I was genuinely happy with how we worked together. Ioana is very supportive, a patient listener and a solution oriented professional. Ioana and I never felt any cultural difference while collaborating, the essential ingredient of a successful global team. Ioana's legal acumen is astounding. I wish Ioana good luck and success.”

“Ioana combines excellent M&A knowledge with strong transactional experience and sharp negotiation instincts. She brings a pragmatic and thoughtful approach to complex transactions and is very effective at navigating difficult issues and finding practical solutions.”

Rick GeerarsPrevents and resolves business disputes, ex-Legal Director UiPath

“I invited Ioana to speak at a conference on how AI is used in AML and KYC, and she kept the audience genuinely engaged. She's smart, has real emotional intelligence, and stays current on everything new in the field.”

Valentin EneHead of Strategic Analysis Service, Euro-Atlantic Resilience Center

“I invited Ioana to moderate a panel at a conference themed "Tech for Good, AI for a Sustainable Future", her panel was called "Tech for Financial Empowerment" looking at how technology can actually move the needle on financial exclusion. It's not an easy conversation to moderate: you have people from different countries, different industries, different starting assumptions about what "financial inclusion" even means. Ioana brought all of it together in a way that just worked, she has a genuine grasp of how emerging technology and financial access intersect, not just as legal theory but as something she's actually built, and she used that credibility to get people talking to each other instead of past each other. That's a rarer skill than people think.”

Diana PoppSenior Associate, Public Affairs Solutions

“In a field still dominated by men, Ioana is a firm presence, but a gentle one too. We share a real interest in corporate governance, and every conversation with her confirms the same thing: she's deeply knowledgeable, but also genuinely approachable, and a natural problem solver.”

Adela JansenCorporate Governance Expert; Associate Professor, ASE

“Ioana is sharp and clearly excellent at what she does, but what stands out is how open she is to new ideas. She's flexible, she doesn't need to be right just to prove a point.”

Bob ResmerițăDigital Transformation • Cybersecurity • QuantumComputing

“I saw Ioana speak about MiCA regulation, and then she structured a deal for me that I genuinely didn't think was possible, providing services under a license that's meant for Europe, for a company based in Dubai. She thought outside the box and found the balance between keeping the business protected and not standing in the way of founders trying to make money.”

Daniel VerocExecutive Chairman Veroc Brands Group, Exalted Official

“Ioana is pragmatic and makes legal concepts genuinely accessible. A lot of people feel anxious dealing with legal teams or with legal issues, I never did, after meeting her. I always knew that when I picked up the phone, she'd solve the problem directly, or point me to someone who could, and either way I'd feel calmer about it.”

Aharon DinesVP Customer Success & Renewals EMEA & APAC, UiPath

“Ioana is easygoing and easy to connect with, even across real cultural differences. Whatever side of the table she's on, negotiating an M&A deal, delivering hard news, or managing a direct report, people never feel like they're dealing with an adversary. She's a partner and a mediator, and she brings sides together.”

Kensuke MamiyaUiPath, Japan

“I invited Ioana to speak to my students, and she has a gift for making things that could sound dry, new and emerging technologies, genuinely interesting. She showed them how legal and tech merged in her own career and what became possible once she educated herself in Web3 and its regulation. By the end, the students wanted more, I've since built a course around exactly that intersection.”

Dragoș MănescuVice Dean DreptASE & Executive Director ANBR & SG AEDBF-Romania

“Ioana and I share a real passion for everything new in blockchain and emerging technology. We've had valuable conversations about it, and about how Romanian public authorities could use this technology to work more efficiently, genuinely new use cases for blockchain and Web3 in the public sector.”

Paul Niculescu-Mizil GheorgheDr. Eng., Head of Technology Transfer, ICI Bucharest; Blockchain @ ICI

“Ioana helped me organize an event in Romania, and what struck me was her knowledge of the market, not just legal, but what makes a startup valuable here. She's open, genuinely helpful, knowledgeable, and steady, and she clearly wants to see Romanian projects grow, whether that means attracting investors or making sure their legal foundations are solid enough to survive financing.”

Karolina MrozkovaGeneral Partner, Emergence Ventures

“I truly appreciated the legal support Ioana provided for UiPath Foundation as a volunteer. Despite her intense workload, we always knew we can count on her to offer us sound legal advice and guide us in all the challenges we encountered from this perspective.”

Raluca Negulescu-BalaciED @UiPath Foundation | Working at the intersection of education equity, AI & systemic innovation

“Ioana and I go back to our NNDKP days. When Netopia was applying for our license, she shared her knowledge generously. She's excellent both in M&A and in payments, and I've always appreciated the help she gave us at that stage.”

Delia PaceagiuCOO, NETOPIA Payments

“Ioana isn't precious, she'll go straight to the field when it's needed, including visiting our data center herself. She's also well connected, and when I had an idea I was passionate about, she encouraged me to pursue it rather than talk me out of it.”

Bogdan StoicaCEO ActualConnect

“Ioana was leading the M&A team at UiPath when they acquired our ProcessGold company. She and I closely cooperated on closing this deal. Ioana is an excellent M&A lawyer, but what stood out most was her focus on getting the deal done well for everyone involved, as partners. She is a true closer. Negotiation was never about making a point; it was a means to reach a good agreement. Perhaps the best indication of how she approaches a deal is that we stayed friends afterward.”

“Raising money as a startup founder is intimidating enough without also trying to decode legal jargon on your own. Ioana didn't just point me toward investors, she made sure I actually understood what I was walking into, what a fund would look for, and where Evopath needed to tighten up before we even had those conversations. She's the kind of legal professional who makes herself genuinely accessible, and her network opened doors I wouldn't have found on my own.”

Bogdan NeacsuDriving Sales Acceleration through AI | CEO & Founder at Evopath

“When you're building a startup, you don't just need a lawyer, you need someone who understands the whole board, not just your square of it. Ioana gave me more than legal advice: she opened doors to partners and connections I wouldn't have found on my own, and she helped me actually think through how OrgXO should be organized, not just document decisions I'd already made. That kind of perspective is rare, and it's exactly what an early-stage founder needs most.”

Gabriel PetrescuChief Serendipity Officer & Founder at OrgXO.com | Certified Board Member | Experienced Organizational Development Consultant | Trainer | Entrepreneur

“Running HR in a company like MultiversX means writing the rulebook as you go, there was no precedent for half the people situations we faced in this industry. Ioana never let legal be a wall between HR and getting things done; she was in the room with me, thinking it through, and she has a genuine gift for reading people, not just contracts. Our conversations went well beyond policy, we talked about life, about people, about what actually mattered in a hard moment, and that's exactly the kind of partner you want in legal when you're building something this new.”

Diana Popescuformer Head of HR, MultiversX

“Ioana handled both corporate matters and crypto-related work for me, and her knowledge of crypto regulation and compliance is genuinely strong. She's also just a nice person, easy to connect with.”

Răzvan MunteanuInvestor

“I met Ioana recently at a business event and we clicked immediately. After a few very deep conversations, we realised we should join forces. She understood our journey straight away, along with our immediate and long-term challenges, and her experience in the regulated sectors we work in is genuinely valuable. She's very proactive. She answers questions before we ask them and brings us new opportunities before we go looking. When she believes in something, she goes all in.”

Andrei BradCo-Founder & CEO, VerbalEaze

“Ioana's knowledge of the local market goes beyond the legal, she understands what makes a Romanian startup investable. At UiPath she had seen what excellence looks like, and it's clear she wants to see more Romanian companies succeed on the global stage.”

Ondrej BartosGeneral Partner, Credo Ventures

“Ioana and I have crossed paths in several settings over the years, and what stays with me is the substance behind her, she's sharp, deeply knowledgeable, and remarkably well connected, but never in a way that feels transactional. Building Musette taught me how much a brand depends on the people you trust around it, and Ioana has that rare quality of making you feel like your business is safe in her hands before you've even started working together. I'd genuinely welcome the chance to build something with her.”

Cristina BâtlanFounder & Creative Director, Musette, Chanand

Read all 48 client voices