NNDKP is once again setting a precedent in the Romanian business law market, creating the role of head of strategic partnerships at group level
On the 1st of October, Alina Timofti, Partner and co-founder of NNDKP Tax Advisory Services, took on the additional role of partner responsible for developing strategic partnerships with the business community at the level of the NNDKP group.
This appointment marks the first time a Romanian law firm has formally assigned a partner to develop the group’s strategic business relationships and confirms a pattern that has existed for over three decades: NNDKP is the first to test business ideas that the market later adopts.
At a time when foreign and Romanian private investment has slowed, and clients are demanding not only expertise from their attorneys but also full availability and business foresight, Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen (NNDKP) is responding with an organizational decision that is unprecedented in the local market. The new role encompasses all entities within the NNDKP group and has a clear goal: to develop and strengthen the group’s relevant relationships within the Romanian business community, as well as to identify and continue to facilitate initiatives and opportunities of interest to the group.
A market that no longer rewards technical expertise alone
The business law sector in Romania is going through one of the most competitive periods in its recent history. Foreign investment flows have slowed, domestic private capital has become more cautious, and an increasing number of players are competing for corporate budgets: local law firms, international firms entering the market either directly or through partnerships, legal divisions of major consulting networks and, increasingly, well-established in-house legal departments. At the same time, the market is undergoing a restructuring characterized by fragmentation at the lower end and consolidation at the top, and the traditional billable-hour model is under pressure from fixed fees, subscriptions, and projects evaluated based on results, as well as, to a significant extent, from the impact of artificial intelligence.
In this context, differentiation can no longer be achieved solely based on the quality of legal or tax advice, which has become a baseline expectation. It increasingly depends on a firm’s ability to anticipate the direction in which the economy is moving, maintain a presence in the communities where projects take shape, and offer clients not only the technical solution, but also access, context, and economic perspective. It is precisely this area – at the intersection between technical expertise and strategic business development – that NNDKP has now chosen to formalize and embed within its organizational framework.
NNDKP’s response is a multidisciplinary strategic approach: the group’s technical capabilities, consistently recognized in the Chambers & Partners, Legal 500, and IFLR1000 rankings, are enhanced by group-wide development and representation capabilities. The new role was created specifically to support NNDKP’s efforts to develop and strengthen relationships with the business community, in line with its strategic development priorities.
For those who have been following the market for over 30 years, the decision comes as no surprise. Founded in 1990, NNDKP has consistently positioned itself as a pioneer of business ideas that the market later adopted: it was among the first law firms to open regional offices, it built a dedicated intellectual property practice, typically associated with boutique firms, and, as early as 2008, it pioneered the first large-scale integration of tax advisory and legal services within a Romanian law firm, through NNDKP Tax Advisory Services.
That initial bet eventually became the group’s hallmark. In 2014, after six years of collaboration between teams of attorneys and tax advisors, NNDKP added the wording “Legal & Tax” to its identity. As described at the time by Ion Nestor, one of the founding partners, the logic is simple: clients no longer want two opinions, one legal and one tax-related, that may sometimes differ and they have to reconcile on their own; instead, they want a single solution that is viable and functional from both perspectives. The role of cross-functional teams is to serve as an integrator – risk assessment and optimal recommendations come simultaneously from both sides, and the client receives support during the decision-implementation phase as well.
The model has been continuously strengthened: the multidisciplinary “legal & tax” team serves both international groups and Romanian entrepreneurial companies that are expanding regionally or undergoing generational succession, as domestic capital matures – one of the areas of interest complementary to traditional legal practice into which the group is expanding its expertise.
Creating and formalizing the role of head of strategic partnerships is a natural next step in this approach. While “Legal & Tax” has integrated the technical disciplines, the new role aims to strengthen, across the entire group, efforts to develop the existing base of strategic clients by involving a partner with high visibility and relationships built over decades of practice in the business world.
What the new role entails
Alina Timofti is one of the founders of the tax advisory practice of NNDKP, which she has been leading, together with Marius Ionescu, since 2008, and has represented on various occasions the business community in technical discussions with the Ministry of Finance and/or the Romanian Tax Authority (ANAF) regarding tax legislation and its application to companies’ operations. The experience gained and the relationships built over time in the business community are, in the opinion of Ion Nestor, the main asset behind the appointment.
It is important for the tax practice’s clients to know that these new responsibilities are in addition to, not in place of, existing ones. Alina Timofti will continue to work alongside NNDKP’s tax partners, ensuring continuity on both ongoing and future projects.
With this appointment, NNDKP is sending a clear signal to the market about how it views the future of business law: it is not just those with the best technical team, but those who can best connect that team to the environment where decisions are made and business ideas are born who will have a future in this market. It remains to be seen how quickly other law firms will follow suit. But, judging by the precedents set by “Legal & Tax” approach or regional offices, history suggests they won’t be far behind.
