Biography
Nicoletta Kouvara is the founder and Managing Partner of Aptus Legal (Nicoletta Kouvara & Partners LLC), a progressive law firm based in Nicosia, Cyprus, established in 2021.
With over twenty years of legal experience, she specialises in international corporate and commercial law, M&A, banking and finance, capital markets, financial services regulation, investment funds, intellectual property, and technology law.
Before founding Aptus Legal, Nicoletta served as Global General Counsel of YNV Group, an international technology conglomerate with over 6,000 employees across Europe, the USA, Central America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, where she led the global legal function and negotiated multi-million dollar IT and SaaS agreements with major technology companies. Prior to that, she spent over a decade at top tier law firm in Cyprus, rising to Partner, where she led high-profile M&A transactions, cross-border financing, IPOs, and fund structuring work. She began her career at firms in Nicosia and at Covington & Burling LLP in London, focusing on intellectual property, software law, and European data protection.
Nicoletta holds an LLB in European Legal Studies from the University of Kent (UK), an International Law Certificate from the University of Amsterdam (UvA), an LLM in Commercial and Corporate Law from Queen Mary University (UK), and a Certificate in Business Sustainability Strategy from MIT Sloan School of Management.
She is recognised by Legal 500 as a "Next Generation Partner," by IFLR1000 as a "Highly Regarded" practitioner in M&A, Capital Markets, and Investment Funds, and by Chambers and Partners as an "Up and Coming" lawyer in Banking & Finance and Corporate/Commercial law.
She advises a diverse international client base including financial institutions, private equity and venture capital funds, startups, high-net-worth individuals, and technology companies on complex transactional, regulatory, and commercial matters.