Christiana Aristidou is a former partner of a 50-year legacy medium-sized family law firm, who recently established our hybrid lawtech firm. She is also the Founder and Director of SmartCity Business, a consulting and R&D company advising public authorities, organizations, private businesses, and individuals on how to truly create smart cities and enhance the daily lives of residents with the use of emerging technologies and connectivity.

Christiana has been practicing business and technology law for more than 23 years, she is a Member of the Cyprus Bar Association since 1997, an approved Trainer (CyQF-EQF-003266), a Certified International Legal Project Practitioner (IILPM), a Certified GDPR Expert (HELP-EU), and a Digital Transformation Specialist. As a Legal Project Practitioner certified by the International Institute of Legal Project Management, Christiana is also a member of the PMI Cyprus Chapter, contributing to the development of project management in the legal industry.

She is a Cyprus Delegate to the ISO TC/307 Blockchain Committee, a member of WG6 on Blockchain Use Cases actively contributing to the Blockchain Use-Case Lab reviewing and advising Blockchain and DLT applications and projects in a wide range of industries, and also a Member of WG-3 actively drafting standards on Smart Contracts. Christiana is also a Member of ITU and served in ITU-FG-DLTs and is a co-founding member and Vice-Chair of the Cyprus Blockchain Association (CBA).

Christiana is the President of the Technology Commission of the Cyprus Bar Association, where she coordinates and leads all initiatives towards the increasing use of technology and innovation in the legal profession.

Christiana is an Advisory Board Member of the SOV Foundation, advising the Government of the Marshal Islands on the implementation of the SOV digital currency.

Having studied and lived in more than five different countries, i.e., Greece, the UK, Germany, China, and Cyprus, Christiana combined legal studies on law and technology, in both, common law and civil law jurisdictions and maintains a very rich business network which supports a global reach of more than 50K professionals and corporates in more than 120 countries.

Christiana has been involved in multijurisdictional and complex business and technology legal projects and worked extensively with Silicon Valley-based technology companies, founders, entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists of diverse backgrounds, banks, payment and e-money institutions, funds and fund managers, investment firms, insurance firms, and telecoms giants. She holds management and advisory positions on the boards of several corporate bodies, profit and non-for-profit, foundations and charities.

Her expertise lies in the intersection of Business Law, Technology, and Innovation with a focus on digital banking and payment innovation, financial services and fintech, M&A, venture capital/private equity investments, regulatory compliance and regtech, telecommunications, antitrust and competition, proptech, insurtech, corporate finance and corporate restructuring, funding and innovative financial instruments, internet and cybersecurity, eCommerce, software and gaming, Intellectual Property and technology IP protection, transactional deals and documentation, technology contract drafting, and intellectual property taxing.

She has advised major local and international players on business transformation, emerging and advanced technologies, platform design, legal mechanics and legal architecture for platform-based innovative business models, start-up projects and funding (i.e. ICOs, STOs, IPOs), digital identity, electronic signatures, digital onboarding, and online identity verification,  implementation of open banking and payment innovation, data protection, data flow and privacy by design, e-money, digital currencies, crypto-assets and crypto-exchanges, tokens, tokenization, tokenecomics, token economy, and cybersecurity.

Christiana is a graduate of the law school of the Kapodistrian University of Athens-Greece and holds three (3) Master degrees from the UK, in Common Law (UEA-UK), in International Commercial and Business Law (UEA-UK), and Computers and Telecommunications Law (Queen Mary College of London University-UK). She also holds a Certificate in International Commercial Arbitration from the University of Cologne, Germany, and a certificate in Chinese Culture and language (HSK2) from Mandarin House-Shanghai-China. Christiana also holds a certificate in Digital Currencies from the University of Nicosia.

Christiana is an approved trainer training leaders, executives, teams, and departments on emerging technologies such as Blockchains and AI and several major EU Directives, Regulations, and other legal and regulatory compliance instruments, such as PSD II and Open Banking, MIFIR, MiFID-I, MiFID-II, AIFM, UCITS, Capital Requirements Directive (CRD), Transparency Directive, eIDAS Regulation, Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, the European Union Telecommunications Framework and GDPR.

She is also a legal author with numerous publications and articles in reputable journals, legal magazines, and on social media and a regular speaker at national and international law and technology conferences and summits.