It wasn’t the first time.
Michaella Pillakouri introduced herself as the founder of the law firm Enalian Consulting, and the people in the room didn’t believe her. By now, she could recognise the signs even before they spoke—the shifting eyes, the raised eyebrows, the little curl of the lips.
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“They said, ‘No way you’re the founder. Is it your father’s or another relative’s office? Who is the actual CEO? Who is behind you?”
Even candidates interviewing for jobs at her firm questioned her authority. “It felt like I was the one being interviewed,” she recalls.
Pillakouri had built the Limassol-based corporate and legal advisory business after leaving a demanding legal position without another job lined up. What began as an opportunity to help an international company obtain a licence in Cyprus gradually developed into a firm employing its own team. She had not planned to become an entrepreneur, and it took a long time for her to recognise what she had created.
Being dismissed as one didn’t help. She was told she was too young, too inexperienced, and… a woman. Initially, the assumptions about her position left her feeling bitter and upset. Over time, her response changed.
“I know who I am. I know what we do. And I don’t allow anyone to make me feel small or voiceless again,”
she says.
In this episode of The Future Makers: Women Building Cyprus, Pillakouri discusses finding her voice in the legal profession, learning to lead a company she never intended to found, and building a workplace that reflects her values. She also reflects on motherhood, the family support behind her career, and the difficulties facing women who do not have access to similar help.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. The views, opinions and claims expressed are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect those of The Future Media.
About The Guest
Michaella Pillakouri is a lawyer and the founder and CEO of Enalian Consulting, a Limassol-based firm providing corporate, legal and tax advisory services. Her expertise covers corporate and commercial law, international business, regulatory compliance and iGaming.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law and a dual Master’s degree in International Commercial and Maritime Law from Swansea University. She has been a member of the Cyprus Bar Association since 2016. In 2026, Enalian Consulting was recognised in The Legal 500’s Cyprus Commercial, Corporate and M&A rankings.
How has the reception been of you as a female founder? Have you encountered any resistance?
I don’t want to lie and say that everything was rosy. Being female, being young and looking even younger, I faced a lot of situations where people didn’t take me seriously.
They would say, “No way you are the founder. Is it your father’s or another relative’s office? Who is the actual CEO? Who is behind you?”
At the beginning, I felt a bit bitter and sad about this. Now I’m just laughing. I don’t pay any attention to it. I have the confidence. I know who I am, I know what we do, and I don’t allow anyone to make me feel small or voiceless again.
But in the beginning, it took a toll on me. Even when I was hiring, I had men coming to interview for jobs, and I felt uncomfortable because they were questioning me and my abilities as a CEO and as a lawyer. It felt like I was the one being interviewed.
I was thinking, I’m going to be paying you, you know that? They were coming with an attitude that they would take the firm and grow it. All I wanted to say was: I don’t need you to do that. I just need you to work if you want to.
That was very challenging. And it still is challenging when I’m in a room with an older generation of men or women who have reservations about me or about taking me seriously.
It’s not easy, even to this day.
You returned to Cyprus after your studies during a very difficult period. You described your unpaid traineeship as one of the hardest years of your life, working long hours on cases involving people losing their homes, divorces, and financial problems. You later went on to found your own company. How did you come to that decision?
I don’t think it was a decision. Life took me there.
I was always telling my friends, when they asked whether I wanted to found my own law firm, “No, no, no. It’s too much responsibility. It’s too much stress. I don’t want to be in that position.”
But on the other hand, I found myself doing things that were not very fulfilling for me, and I didn’t feel that I was developing much.
When I was working at my previous law firm, I decided that I wanted to resign. I couldn’t live like that anymore. I couldn’t do things that didn’t fulfil me.
I was feeling empty and filled with stress from morning until evening. I didn’t have a social life or a personal life. I was stressed from work seven days a week, 24/7.
So I resigned without even having a second job.
At the time, a good friend told me that a company was looking for a lawyer to set up its business in Cyprus and obtain a licence under the Cyprus Betting Authority. This happened in 2017. The legislation was new, and foreign companies were starting to come to Cyprus.
I thought, okay, I want to meet the head of legal. Why not? I can do it. It’s new legislation, something nobody has done before. It’s an interesting new field, and I would be interested in challenging myself.
I went to the meeting, won the engagement, and licensed the company in Cyprus.
I started working with that group, building up its operations in Cyprus over approximately two years. As the work developed, I needed more help. So naturally, I started hiring people to assist with other aspects of licensing and day-to-day legal matters.
That’s how I founded Enalian Consulting. It was accidental. Life took me there.
When I realised that I had eight people on my payroll, I thought, What is happening? I need to find a brand name. I need to find offices.
Our team was getting bigger, and I needed larger premises. That was when I started to realise what I was doing.
Every step was new to me. That’s what makes it exciting and unique, and I love it.
A lot of women have voiced their concerns that the structures in Cyprus are not particularly supportive of female founders and women with demanding careers, especially when they are also mothers. What has been your experience?
I’m very lucky because I have my mother to help me. It’s another woman supporting a woman.
My mother gets to be the leader in my home, taking care of my children, their routines, their appointments, and, most of the time, our dinners.
I’m very fortunate. I don’t feel restricted in developing my career because I have my mother.
But if I didn’t have my mother, I know that I wouldn’t have had a career. For sure. It would have been impossible.
The way life is structured in Cyprus is not supportive of women. Usually, women are the ones who sacrifice for the careers of their husbands.
I’m also very lucky because I have a husband who has respected my career from early on. He knew about my devotion and how passionate I felt about my work, and he was never an obstacle. He prioritised my career a lot in the beginning.
I’ve had cases in my office where women had to change their work, resign, or become part-time employees because they didn’t have anyone to look after their children in the afternoon, drive them to lessons or medical appointments, or help them care for their parents.
Some women were living in Limassol without their mothers nearby or without a trusted kindergarten where they could leave their children. They had to resign or move back to their home cities.
There are a lot of things that need to be done.
There have been some steps forward, especially with the establishment of afternoon public schools. That has been a great relief for many women, but you don’t find them in every school, and they only operate until 4 pm.
Who leaves work at 4 pm? Most women leave at 6 pm, or at 5 pm if they’re lucky.
It’s a relief, but it’s still not helping as much as it should be.
I think this is where we fail mainly in Cyprus.
We need to plan for the long term rather than make short-term decisions just to solve an immediate problem.
WATCH OR LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE
The Future Makers Podcast is a series of in-depth conversations about how future-makers are made, in Cyprus and beyond. Host Annetta Benzar sits down with people who are a leading force in our shared future and looks past the titles. Together, they travel back to the people and moments that shaped them, walk through the choices and challenges they are living through now, and look ahead to the futures they are trying to build.
Women Building Cyprus follows women whose lives and decisions are changing what this island can be.
A production of The Future Media.
