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Tobiasz Adam Kowalczyk, Head of Legal and Public Policy, Volkswagen Poznan

When I came to Volkswagen two years ago, I started auditing how we were handling cases and legal topics in our organisation, and I learned that in this field we were taking a bit of a classical approach. We didn’t really have a system in place that could embrace all of the legal queries, legal contracts, and everything else which comprised the work of the legal department. My impression is that while a lot of lawyers use new technologies and devices, we often do so in a way that replaces the old functionality without truly embracing the power of technology.

A one-stop shop

I proposed that we should implement a legal management system so that we would have all of the data – contracts, agreements and everything else you can imagine – connected to legal services and outcomes in a single system. Each employee in the company has access to the system and can submit legal queries. As an administrator of this system, I can delegate specific tasks to a lawyer in my team. But what is important is that the internal clients submit all the necessary data into the system so we don’t lose time calling each other or sending emails – everything is there in the system so we can render the legal advice. The same happens with the legal opinions, legal questions – internal clients can submit a query, and then I seek the right person in my team to respond. We have different response times based on the urgency of the query. You can access the system from any place – it’s online in the cloud, so my team can work from home or while travelling on business.

At the moment, the system is a database, but we are working with a legal tech start-up to test the addition of artificial intelligence solutions in a specific module that will create agreements for our internal clients. There will be no lawyer needed: you will just submit all the necessary data and the algorithm will prepare the agreement for you. We think this will streamline the process.

Benchmarking

Our system gives an opportunity to benchmark the work of my lawyers – how much time they need to respond, and how many queries they receive – you can extract this data from the system. I even have statistics. It helps to have an overview of the workload of the lawyers, so I can see how many cases they are dealing with and their response times. It also gives me a nice view of what issues are particularly complicated, and which we find time-consuming.

the challenge was to get the specific budget for the implementation.

The lawyers in my team are very supportive of the system. Even those with less of a technical acumen are gradually adapting to this technical revolution, not to mention those who grew up in the digital age who adapt on the spot.

The costs of changing the paradigm

The challenge was to get the specific budget for the implementation. Convincing the management board was actually the first milestone for me – just to get the money and to convince the decision-makers that this was something we should do – because for them it’s also a change in the paradigm. We are quite a big organisation, with lots of departments and lots of different systems, and we wanted our system to be connected directly to our finance system so we could also track some standings and combine agreements with the invoices. The whole phase of implementation was quite troublesome, and it required cooperation with external IT advisers and our internal IT department, and a whole testing phase. We also had to provide training for the employees outside of legal, because previously it was easy for them – they were just grabbing a phone and calling a particular lawyer. Now they had to do it online without any support. So the beginnings were not easy, but now everyone has gotten used to it.

When thinking about technology, I tend to look for stuff from outside my company, to the people working in legal tech. I also try to be active in the legal tech space in Poland, and am vice chairman of the German-Polish Chamber of Commerce Legal Tech Commission. We meet every two or three months to discuss what’s going on in the legal market, and it’s very important for me to exchange opinions with my peers from other big corporations in Poland about how they use legal technologies to tackle problems, and what solutions they are using.

Getting ahead

Very often, if I’m writing a bid for legal services and want to cooperate with external counsel, I ask them if they are using any technological tools that can support me, or whether their legal advice can be rendered in a better structured way, or if there is the possibility that they will provide me with the necessary data direct into my system. For me, if a law firm could show that they have some legal tech solutions supporting their services, that would be an advantage.

I know that the big names are working on new technology, but my experience is that although it is cascading from the headquarters, there is not that much success in this field yet. I know that there are some Magic Circle firms that are even giving free office space for start-ups, and are creating and cooperating very closely. I think that this is happening in the Polish market, but it’s still not very common. It is a hot topic, everyone is talking about it, but then when you ask about the implementation, or what kind of tools people are using, it’s still at the early stage.

I believe that within the next two or three years we will see more technological disruption happening: more companies offering those services and more in-house counsel looking for those services on the market. It is growing and it will change the legal landscape. To be successful in the market, you have to be an early adopter, you have to be at the forefront, because otherwise you are just a follower.

We talk about external lawyers always being part of the project team. A very good example is due diligence when you are buying a property or making an acquisition. Now there are really good legal tech tools in place, which can analyse a lot of documents so that the lawyers can focus on giving more client-oriented advice. They can be closer to the client, and closer to their businesses rather than just sitting and analysing papers and, for me, that’s the biggest positive aspect of technological evolution and disruption.

Balancing the personal with the efficient

Some lawyers in my field have this feeling that we are losing the personal touch with our clients, and that we are just putting systems and technology in place. I think if you are working for a law firm, then that’s the most important thing – if I like a particular lawyer, I will work with them regardless of which firm they are working with because I know them, I know they’re a good professional and very responsive. But lawyers need to wear many hats – they need to be lawyers, they need to be project managers, very often they need to be psychologists and mediators, and this is the value that they add to the business. So if they can leave some of their work to algorithms and deal with the client instead – understand their business and their challenges – then that’s important, I think, from my perspective as GC.

In corporate legal departments, I think that technology can create an additional layer between the lawyer and the internal client. But I think our role is a little bit different: we are not looking for the client, clients are looking for us; we always have sufficient jobs to do. So from this perspective, I think it can optimise our work because then the internal client will think: ‘Do I really need to ask this question, maybe I can find it somewhere else, maybe they have a directory of frequently-asked-questions, maybe there are some common agreements which I can use and download from the system without contacting the lawyer.’ It’s easy to just take the phone and call a lawyer, but if you have to put some data in the system and think about it, then you might think, ‘Maybe it’s not a really big issue for me or maybe I don’t really need the legal support.’ In short, in internal legal departments, technology can help us to focus on where the real problems are, and devote our time to the legal issues which are really essential or which add value to the company.

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Giulio Romanelli, Associate Partner, McKinsey & Company and John Pyall, Head of MGA Cockpit, Munich Re UK

GC: In the legal sector, many people describe the emergence of legal tech start-ups as ‘fintech’s little brother’. Could you tell me about the emergence of fintech, Giulio, and how it has impacted the banking sector?

Giulio Romanelli (GR): Banking has historically been one of the business sectors most resilient to disruption by technology. However, in the last ten years, fintechs have moved quickly, forcing incumbents to rethink their core business models and embrace digital innovations. In the last five years, we’ve seen a significant journey as fintechs have become more and more mature.

Today, banks remain uniquely and systemically important to the economy; they are the major repository for deposits, which customers largely identify with their primary financial relationship; they continue to be the gateways to the world’s largest payment systems; and they still attract the bulk of requests for credit.

Some things have changed, however. Firstly, the financial crisis had a negative impact on trust in the banking system. Secondly, customers are more open to relationships that focus on origination and sales. Thirdly, mobile devices have undercut the advantages of physical distribution. Plus there has been a massive increase in the availability of data alongside a significant decrease in the cost of computing power.

GC: To what extent would you term it a disruption?

GR: We can call this a disruption in the sense that fintechs have a unique opportunity for customer disintermediation, by leveraging advantaged modes of customer acquisition, a step-function reduction in the cost to serve, innovative use of data and advanced analytics, and segment/niche-specific propositions.

GC: When insurtechs started popping up in the insurance space, what was the reaction like in the industry, John?

John Pyall (JP): At the beginning, to a certain degree, insurtechs were looked upon with interest, but as: ‘It’s a bit gimmicky, it’s interesting but it’s not for us.’ And then, over time, they were looked at with more and more interest. From our point of view, we made a clear play in that direction. But I think there still is a little bit of ‘watch and see’ about the insurance market as a whole.

GC: Have insurtechs disrupted the insurance space?

JP: I think people look at disruption as being a negative idea. I think insurtech start-ups have, to a certain degree, enhanced the insurance area because they have actually allowed insurers to touch into areas that we previously may not have been able to. For example, digital partners have allowed us to reach out to new customers that we may not previously have ever gotten close to, simply because of the mediums they use to connect to their services. We have insurtechs that purely use social media to market to their customers and their clients and, to a certain degree, their distribution models are so different from what we were traditionally used to it has meant we have got avenues to customers we would never have considered five years ago.

That may be younger people, it may be people who are more engaged in social media. It may be people who are looking to insure single item contents, which insurers wouldn’t have looked at before. We would have had difficulty insuring people employed in the gig economy, doing three jobs in a day, but these new models enhance our ability to do so.

GC: Has this involved an element of culture change?

JP: When you have companies coming in that are younger, more flexible and they are able to drive through changes very quickly within their own organisations, you look at that and say: ‘We need to show that we have that ability as well. If we want to be in this market we have to be able to deal with that.’ So therefore it does actually allow people to think positively about how can we adapt, to differentiate ourselves within these markets.

GC: Looking again to the banking sector, how have established banking organisations responded to fintech disruption? Has it has a knock-on transformative effect in terms of the way these organisations use technology?

GR: As successful fintechs have rapidly matured from start-ups to mature technology disruptors, banks have started the long journey to transform their core digital capabilities, with several areas of focus. These include: a digital-native customer experience; big data and advanced analytics; moving towards a scalable technology landscape through cloud and automation; adoption of APIs (Application Programmable Interface).

Firstly, banks have been creating an integrated customer experience inspired by digital attackers, versus using a one-size-fits-all distribution. So rather than using the branch as the main point of interaction with customers, all the banks have mobile apps and they are very proud of the features that they use to differentiate themselves.

Innovating the customer experience by integrating with fintechs can provide advantages. For example, take the typical onboarding time for corporate lending. A fintech such as Kabbage proposes to reduce the onboarding time for down from something close to days, to something which is close to minutes.

Secondly, using data-driven insights and analytics holistically across the banks. While focus is generally on ‘customer-facing’ use cases, it’s very interesting to see advanced analytics applied internally to drive operational efficiency. For instance, advanced analytics to improve quality and efficiency of KYC [Know Your Customer] and anti-money-laundering.

Thirdly, banks have been mitigating the potential cost advantage of attacks through radical simplification and refining of technology infrastructure, both on process and existing technologies. For example, leveraging and deploying new technologies such as Cloud enables banks to move towards a more scalable and cheaper technology footprint.

Finally, there are several cases in which banks want to be able to offer not only their own solutions, but to also be able to link to third-party solutions. Some financial players want to offer third-party APIs directly to their own customers. And this is happening right now in terms of payments.

GC: How has technology transformation been received in the banking sector – has it required a lot of culture change?

GR: All of the above have required a significant shift in terms of culture and capabilities of incumbents, which are nowadays focusing more and more to attract digital/tech talent.

Moreover, the pace of innovation in banking is accelerating rapidly, requiring banks to increase their speed to keep up, adopting Agile software development techniques, which imply a radically different way to think about the organisation.

GC: John, in the insurance space, can you tell me a little bit about your role in Munich Re, and how the company is working with insurtechs?

JP: I head the MGA Cockpit, which assists our digital partner unit in onboarding new digital partner business into the Munich Re. A digital partner is a partner – an insurtech start-up normally – which is interested in using digital means like an app, social media, or the internet, in order to secure insurance business. The Cockpit was created 18 months ago through the Munich Re think tank to help the due diligence process of the start-up.

We have a digital partner unit that finds new ideas and new business to be brought in as a product, and we assist them in making that a viable insurance product. Basically somebody comes to our digital partners unit with an idea, and we help them develop that into a formalised product and assist them to bring that into operation.

GC: How do you do that?

JP: We may look at whether they want to write that as a single risk, as a group policy, do they need to write it with an MGA? We look at what’s needed in the wording in order to make it effective. We then see what they need to do: how they are going to handle the claims, do they need to outsource that, we might provide them with someone to manage the claims on their behalf.

GC: Are incumbent insurance organisations under threat from insurtechs or is it going to be a process of greater partnering, do you think?

JP: There’s always going to be one or two insurtechs that may seem to be a potential threat. But I would say that generally the growth will be by partnering – that’s where people are really looking. There are very few that are coming in to disrupt the entire chain; I think most are looking to assist within the distribution chain itself. That helps both the existing business and the new start-up, so there are advantages to both sides if you get it right.

GC: How are banks working with fintech companies? To what extent are partnerships occurring? What are the benefits of partnering? And what are the challenges?

GR: Whereas market and media commentary has emphasised the threat to established business models, the opportunities for incumbents to develop new partnerships aimed at better cost control, capital allocation and customer acquisition are growing.

The vast majority of fintechs focus on retail banking, lending and payments. In many of these areas, start-ups have sought to target the end customer directly, bypassing traditional banks. In some cases, this is further accelerated by regulatory changes such as PSD2 [the second Payment Services Directive, a 2015 EU Directive] in Europe, accelerating the shift towards open banking ecosystems.

However, most recent analyses suggest that the structure of the fintech industry is changing and that a new spirit of cooperation between fintechs and incumbents is developing. For example, ING partnered with the lending start-up Kabbage back in 2015 to deliver instant capital to SMEs. Another example is the fact that blockchain development in recent years has been mainly pushed by consortia, bringing together banks and fintechs.

This offers significant benefit for both parties, as it allows fintechs to rapidly access and offer their services to large pools of customers, while incumbents can rapidly deploy customer-centric digital-native services, and strengthen their own digital capabilities and talent pool. Looking ahead is whether such a ‘coopetition’ model is really sustainable in the long term – ie whether one side of this equation becomes more relevant.

GC: From an insurance incumbent point of view, John, what might be the blockers to partnering with insurtechs?

JP: I think culture does have something to do with it – can you build new technology into your existing systems?

Regulation is also one. We are a very regulated industry, so we have to be careful about how we take steps. It cannot be revolution, it has to be evolution. New technology makes people nervous – they understand their business and they understand how it works. If you then drop outside of that, can you write the business in a different model? How does that work?

Another thought is whether you are actually going to end up competing against yourself. That is a clear worry that people have – am I actually just offering the same thing but getting less value out of it?

GC: In your opinion, Giulio, what are the most exciting technological developments in the banking sector?

GR: Looking forward, the most exciting technology developments are related to the next evolution of current tech must-haves, from advanced analytics and machine learning, to intelligent automation, to blockchain, to internet of things.

GC: And how about the insurance sector?

JP: In terms of new tools, there are home and emergency products, for example alarm systems which allow you to instantly know if you’ve got water leakage or a fire or something like that when you’re away from your home.

A lot of it is around trying to change how product service is given, so we’ve got flight cancellation tools looking at how you can get on a new flight.

There are ways insurers are using data to be more proactive and customer-centric in managing loss better, so if there’s a flood, we can identify which potential customers are affected instead of waiting for them to contact us.

I think the way customers approach insurers is going to change quite dramatically as well. They can manage their whole claim themselves, so they know where the claim is at any stage.

GC: In terms of the technology that’s underpinning these new insurance facilities, what are the trends there?

JP: The technology itself is very AI-dominated. It is very much about how much can we automate so that we can respond quicker to customer needs, and keep them informed.

The balance is between automation and empathy – you don’t want a chat bot to respond to a customer in a very automated way when you’re dealing with something which has an emotional requirement.

GC: Do you get a lot of pushback from customers on that?

JP: If you have bought through a digital platform, to a certain degree you assume you are going to go through a digital journey and there’s a certain acceptance to that. However, there are times where people want to drop out of that digital journey, and you have to be prepared to respond to those touch points.

The key is to be flexible, to look at where it can actually genuinely assist, but to make sure you put your customer first. Whereas AI can actually help you reduce cost and make that customer journey more effective, what you don’t want to do is lose that empathetic relationship with the client so they become a customer that touches base with you once and looks purely at price.

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Cristina Álvarez Fernández, Head of legal Europe, Cintra

We are exploring how to benefit from tools based on artificial intelligence within our legal department. We still haven’t found the right tool or technology for implementation – but I don’t think we’re far away either. It’s about following a process and making sure – especially the first time – that we do this the right way.

A Fresh Start

This has been a new process for us and we’ve been very deliberate about the steps involved. The first thing we did was to really thoroughly research and find out just what’s in the market. We used a range of sources, from specialist legal magazines, through to talking with our peers – both legal and otherwise.

I have encouraged an internal analysis of the current developments of artificial intelligence in the legal field. We have identified a few tools that could ease the work of the legal department. If we can implement these tools successfully, this will result in economic savings for the company and will help to allocate the resources of the department more efficiently.

At present, we’re currently at the stage where we’re testing tools that we’ve identified that are currently in the market. I think that the first tool we implement will be for contract review. We’ve invested a significant amount into this system already and are hoping that we can have it ready to go by the end of 2018.

First Things First

Contract management and review was a logical first step for us, particularly around NDAs. People always find the same dangers in that kind of contract, so it’s routine work. It can be done by a very junior lawyer – once you explain to that lawyer what the issues are, normally it’s something that can be done really quickly. The line of thinking we took was to take this one step further and try to give it to technology. This is the starting point from which we can hopefully expand.

I don’t think this will replace entirely, at least so far, a person in our team. We’re certainly not planning to get rid of someone just because we believe that work will be done by a machine – not at all. I think this is going to help us to better allocate the resources that we have. We’re not a large department, so where I really see the benefit is being able to focus on things that really need our minds and judgement – which is where technology is probably the least useful at the moment.

Inside Out

I do think that, in time, technology will help us reduce our external legal spend. If we can develop systems within our department that can take on some of this load – particularly where there are significant amounts of data – then we should be able to bring more of this work in-house.

I think that, in time, we will see the relationship between in-house departments and external firms change as a result of technology – mostly where fees are concerned. I suspect that the fees of law firms can be reduced, or at least controlled, depending on the market and matters at hand. But I don’t think the interplay will shift, where we’ll suddenly be dealing with machines rather than a person. At least I can’t anticipate that now – but who knows, maybe in the future, that will be the way!

I have genuinely been surprised and impressed at how the legal sector is dealing with innovations. It’s amazing how the law firms have seen the importance of new technology and they are really getting involved in these matters. Certainly, the sector is always very traditional and conservative, so when we first undertook the research process of finding out what was in the market, it came as a pleasant surprise to see that law firms are leading innovation in the legal sector and how many are doing things like working with start-ups in developing new technology.

I do think that the main driver motivating law firms is profitability. The way in which firms assess and charge their fees, it was getting to a point where it was going to be very difficult to sustain. Clients in particular are trying to change the way that they invoice, looking at alternate fee arrangements or, in some cases, bringing more work in-house. As a result, I think they have been forced to find ways to reduce cost and maintain their profitability. But at the same time, they will have no doubt seen other industries disrupted by technology and seen that this is the way forward.

A Group Effort

Ferrovial’s IT department has been an asset – they’re a really big part of the Ferrovial Group and have been essential throughout this process. They are genuinely curious about the technologies available and their potential impact on both our department and the wider group. They seemed enthused that we were taking an interest in this and were actively helping us along in this process.

One factor which may be more unique to Ferrovial, is that our IT department work with a lot of innovative start-ups. The group is actively working with, even financing some start-up businesses, and the IT department have been looking at some of these to see whether there are tools that could be adapted to legal, or developed specifically for us and our needs.

This isn’t something that’s unique to legal, it’s been happening in other departments already. In general, our company and group are very interested in innovation and new technology. It’s crucial for a business like Cintra and will become even more important in the future. We work closely with roads, in particular toll roads – so innovations like driverless cars have the potential to be transformational for the business. But as with any shift, there are a host of legal issues that will go along with that. So, it’s about bringing all of those factors together and becoming more innovative, thinking more innovatively, collaborating and using technology.

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In conversation: Supriya Gogia, Legal Counsel, Asics

GC: Tell me about your role and how you came to be at Asics.

Supriya Gogia (SG): Asics opened its Southeast Asia regional headquarters in 2012 here in Singapore. I joined Asics in 2016. Prior to this, I was working for a retail e-commerce company which was a first mover in the region. After a good run with online retail, I was looking to get some hands-on experience in offline retail as well. That’s how Asics happened. Asics has been in the region for six years. It has expanded exponentially during this period. Asics started off fairly early in Europe, and America, and other regions in the world, purely because these regions were seen to be more health conscious and sports-centric back then. This consciousness came to SE Asia in the last 15 to 20 years or so, and now the fitness industry in Asia Pacific is worth a whopping $16.8 billion – the highest value ever. There hasn’t been a better time to be here.

GC: It must be quite interesting for you – as you said you started in the online retail business and then moved offline – what was that transition like?

SG: E-commerce in Southeast Asia has been very hot for the last five years, as it is elsewhere in the world. The only impediment in Southeast Asia is that regulations and laws catch up slowly with technology. Technology is moving much faster than legislation, and this game of playing catch-up sometimes ends up impacting the industry adversely. In-house counsel need ratification for creative business models that companies are trying to implement; when we go to external counsel, they do not necessarily have black and white advice because the industry is nascent, it’s very niche, and there are very few companies which are acting as disruptors and pushing boundaries. At the same time, jurisdictions are in the midst of formalising relevant legislation, which makes it imperative that we work closely with external counsel as well as government authorities. Regulations in different countries in Southeast Asia keep evolving and it’s important for us to understand if any upcoming legislation is going to have an impact, either positive or negative, on existing business plans.

For me, the move from e-commerce has been very interesting indeed. Offline retail is more traditional, organised and risk averse as compared to e-commerce, even regulations concerning offline retail are better set out. There is a lot to learn as counsel because most consumer retail brands take pride in store concepts and their existence, which means both offline and online sales channels are important for consumers. As such, being in a spot which is ever-changing and still very new is quite challenging, but it’s equally interesting if you want to be an industry expert. My experience has been very fulfilling and I think these skills become advantageous along the way. All companies want to be online – most of them are there already – so it is a very interesting prospect for my personal growth and contribution to the retail industry. Omni-channel experience is something that is likely to become more of a necessity than choice.

GC: Do you have any sense of why e-commerce has exploded the way it has, in Asia specifically?

SG: Yes. I feel the reason for that is: one, Asia has a relatively younger population, compared to other parts of the world. And secondly, I feel that when you talk about the fourth revolution, it is different from the first three because the first three began in different parts of the world – the first one started in Britain, the second in North America and so on, but I feel the fourth industrial revolution – and this is completely a personal opinion – it started all over the globe, all at once. For instance, even if Apple is designing a phone in California, there is a manufacturer assembling it in China. It is a very collaborative revolution, where countries are coming together to give the end product to the consumer. This is what makes Asia very relevant in this revolution because it is not left behind, it is in fact playing a very significant role. This e-commerce explosion is also partly due to cheaper labour costs and strengthening of the manufacturing industry in this region. Because labour is cheaper in Asia, we have a growing service industry which is well equipped to support e-commerce operations and a massive manufacturing set-up. These are industries which give a strong foundation to e-commerce.

GC: Asics is looking to increase presence in other markets in Southeast Asia soon – how do these markets differ from those where Asics is already well-established?

SG: Asia is unique in that sense. Not all Asian countries offer seamless market entry for foreign companies, some economies are closed and protected. When a Japanese company like ours wants to establish a foothold – it’s not free entry. For some countries you either need to partner with a local venture or you need to invest additional capital to be able to engage in industry-specific activities. That said, these markets have immense potential for expansion, with a growing middle class and a surge in awareness surrounding fitness and sporting goods. We work very closely with external counsels in these countries since language can be a barrier at times. The majority of government documents in Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are in local languages which require local expertise to decipher.

GC: As a large, recognisable brand, intellectual property must be of particular concern. Could you talk a little about that?

SG: Yes. Intellectual property is the most valuable asset for any global company – for consumer goods it’s the most important piece of brand management. As I mentioned before, the bulk of manufacturing for consumer goods is done in Asia, and this comes with a downside for brand protection. There could be instances where one factory might be manufacturing goods for different brands, and no matter how well you articulate the liability clauses, how meticulous your contracts are, there is bound to be leakage. Leakage is when original products are leaked through the factories into open markets. Brands also face issues of counterfeit products, which originate from factories which create copies of authentic products. When you operate in a region that manufactures, you have to be extra cautious of these infringements, which are potential high risks for the brand.

GC: Is there anything that you see coming on the horizon that might affect the industry?

SG: I do think the concept of augmented reality is quite intriguing, as well as the trend of pop-up stores – which is quite common in Asia – where you can try a pair of footwear, get the “touch and feel” of the product and use a tablet or iPad available at the pop-up to order that product. The product could be delivered to your address the very same day. You don’t need to stock up inventory, the space required is minimal, which ensures you don’t pay exorbitant high street rentals and human resources involved are far less. I do foresee this as being a popular way to shop for countries where internet penetration is high.

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In conversation: Dominic Gyngell, general counsel, Speedcast Industries

GC: How did you get to your position at Speedcast?

Dominic Gyngell (DG): I had been at BT for 13 years when I got approached by Speedcast in 2014. It was really interesting because it was telecoms-related but a much smaller company with big ambitions. It had achieved impressive growth, the company had been around in some form since 2001 but it was only when it was listed on the Australia Stock Exchange in 2014 that it landed on its feet and started to grow an aggressive international strategy.

GC: Were you involved in the company’s listing?

DG: I joined in early 2016 post IPO – it was a steep learning curve for me. I am involved in continuing disclosure obligations in Australia and since then we’ve done a number of things including two more equity raisings in Australia and a refinancing programme where we moved our debt from Australia to the US market.

GC: How have you grown the legal team in that time?

DG: The legal team was small at first, there were just three of us when I joined. Since then we’ve expanded, we have 15 lawyers globally. We provide satellite communications to some pretty remote parts of the world, operating in over 100 countries and with offices in 40.

Our largest markets are the US: we do a lot of work for the US government, large energy companies such as ConocoPhillips. We do work in Southeast Asia and Africa, and dealing with regulators and governments in the US is very different from working with businesses in Myanmar and Kazakhstan. It really varies.

GC: How is the legal team structured?

DG: We are organised regionally, we have a team based in the Americas, one covering EMEA and one in Asia.

GC: What does your job look like on a day-to-day basis?

DG: The role is very diverse: this week I’ve been dealing with labour disputes in Brazil, new customer contracts, board meetings in Angola and Sydney, a property deal in Peru, whilst balancing all the day-to-day operations. Every day is different. My job has changed a lot since I joined when we were a $200million company; today we have revenue of 1 billion US dollars. We’ve gone from 300 staff to 1500 in that time. We’ve got a lot more sophisticated. A big part of my job is working on M&A; we’ve done 15 deals since 2012. We acquired our most recent company last week – one of our largest competitors in the US, Globecomm. They operate in 100 countries.

GC: What sectors do you cover?

DG: Speedcast has four main divisions: maritime, which includes providing telecommunications services to cruise ship operators around the world, and commercial maritime, which covers smaller vessels. Energy is our second biggest division – our main customers are offshore oil and gas companies. We are increasingly serving governments, as well as the military, mining companies and NGOs.

GC: What are the biggest challenges on the horizon for you over the next 12 months?

DG: Compliance continues to grow – we are seeing a lot of change with regards to ethical compliance. Anti-corruption, bribery, regulatory compliance, all remain key issues for our type of business. We have just done a large GDPR programme in Europe, and I expect to be dealing with increasing data protection legislation.

From an internal perspective, we are focusing on integrating the 15 new businesses we have acquired. A large part of this is bringing together different teams, and this will be a challenge getting our systems aligned and dealing with cultural issues.

GC: Have you introduced technology within the legal department?

DG: We’ve just launched a programme to digitise all of our customer contracts onto a single database that can be accessed by the whole legal team and operations. For the first time, we can get centralised data on all of our larger customers and our supplier contracts. We deal with dozens of bids and contracts around the world so we have also automated our approval processes, so that they are all on one system.

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In conversation: Crystal Lalime, head of APAC global markets legal, Credit Suisse

GC: Technology in finance is a hot topic – especially here in Hong Kong. What are your perspectives on this and what is Credit Suisse doing in this area?

Crystal Lalime (CL): Technology is changing finance, it is changing banking and, in the process, creating new pathways for Legal to play a role.

Recently, we partnered with a fintech company called Canopy Pte Ltd. What their technology allows is for clients to consolidate their accounts on the automated account aggregation platform, so an individual can manage their whole portfolio from a single platform, which is quite a powerful tool for our clients. We identified a company that we thought provided a very good solution for our clients and took an investment in the company to provide that service to our clients.

This is a major trend in the industry and we are very much a part of it.

GC: Can you describe the partnership approach that Credit Suisse takes to working with start-ups?

CL: With start-ups, you see a lot of interesting technology, but a lot of the times it becomes about who they partner with, where their distribution chain is, what their path to market is and whether there is a really strong use case. As lawyers, we can’t necessarily keep up with the technology development, but we certainly have ideas about how they can be partnered with or integrated into Credit Suisse.

Our approach so far has centred on just that – partnering. A lot of AI technology partners may be attracted to partnering on certain projects with us because of the large data dumps we can provide to train their algorithms, but oftentimes finding a use case that makes sense on the legal technology side for CS and the technology provider can be time-consuming.

GC: When working with start-ups, what role is Legal asked to play?

CL: As we look at these opportunities with start-ups, that also presents new challenges for Legal. Oftentimes, start-ups aren’t as well governed as we’d expect – particularly with the high standards we’re accustomed to operating within. Legal plays a prominent role in advising on the due diligence and sometime restructure of start-ups, which isn’t unexpected – these are M&A deals after all – but the issues which arise can be more varied.

When you’re running a start-up, budget is a huge consideration, but when you’re working with financial institutions – areas like compliance are ones where there isn’t room for error. Sometimes you’ll see that there are certainly the right intentions in mind, but a start-up might employ a junior compliance officer to help them get on the right track – but as you scale up and you’re running a big platform – the compliance may be extremely onerous.

Once a partner is identified, there’s a whole host of further issues for Legal to consider. What are the processes in place for handling data, moving data and protecting data? If we’re co-developing products, who is going to own the IP? What about if there’s interest from other financial institution’s to licence the technology – how do we handle that? It takes a lot of creativity and diligence, as well as constant training and upskilling for the legal teams who may have previously been advising on selling products and are now involved in offering software services. There is a lot of crossover and innovation requiring product and IP legal expertise. We’re not just providing advice on legal issues – advising on strategy.

GC: Being asked to work on projects like this is outside of the typical scope we often hear from GCs – particularly in finance. Have you had to adjust your approach in terms of hiring or training your staff as a result?

CL: That is a real challenge that we face. It comes back to the core values of our GC department, which are legal advisory, legal service provider and strategic adviser. To continue to provide these in a changing environment, it means that we have to be constantly upskilling – and that goes both for myself and for my team.

It also means that I’m more frequently taking stock of what skillsets we have on our team and what we might need to stay ahead – one day it could be looking for a programmer or a computer science person, the next we could be looking at these start-up-style deals, where perhaps we need people specialised in IP or outsourcing – it’s really about constantly staying on top of what we have and what we need.

I think as a broader trend, this is true for a lot of legal departments. The nature of legal work, as much as it stays the same, the applications change and how we go about completing that work is changing too. At the moment, many of the lawyers on my team are working with technologists (e.g. programmers and other platform specialists) – that’s a direct result of a lot of our legal documentation being automated. On the team, you have to have lawyers willing to do what may be perceived as non-traditional legal work and explain to non-lawyers our trade. That goes both ways too – on the other side, we need to have programmers and technologists who are willing to work with lawyers. It’s a paradigm shift and the overlap between technology and legal is growing constantly – and that’s not something I see changing any time soon.

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In conversation: Randi Ikhlas Sardoni, Head of Legal and Corporate Secretary, Panin Dai-ichi Life

GC: Can you tell me a little bit about your background, how you came to be working in-house, in the financial services industry and at Panin Dai-ichi Life in particular?

Randi Ikhlas Sardoni (RIS): I was born into a legal background family – my grandfather, father, uncles, aunts, cousins, brother, you name it. We hand over books from generation to generation. But that is in the private sector – surprisingly there has been no one working in-house – so I had to take the first step in the family. I only spent a couple of months in private practice, and then I took my career to work as in-house counsel at one of the biggest state-owned banks in Indonesia.

I found out that the insurance sector in Indonesia was growing and offering a lot of opportunities and challenges, and also that there was a scarcity of local talent. With the economy growing and many insurance companies entering the Indonesian market and competing for the same talent, there is a shortage in the market. Now I am at an insurance company, and have fallen in love with the sector.

GC: What are the main challenges of the Indonesian insurance market?

RIS: Indonesia is an emerging market and has high potential for the insurance sector. The main challenge currently is the market penetration. Insurance penetration in Indonesia is still around 2.9% compared to GDP. Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia have much higher penetration.

GC: Why is it so low?

RIS: I think one of the problems is financial literacy, particularly insurance literacy. There is scepticism about the insurance industry in Indonesia. The Indonesian financial authority, the OJK, has addressed this issue and it has required insurance companies to have a campaign for financial literacy, to increase market penetration.

GC: Can you talk a little bit about the regulatory environment in Indonesia?

RIS: The legal team will transform – we are no longer a braking system in the car, but we will become a navigation system. We are shifting our role from the defending player into the playmaker. We have to be able to provide strong legal advice and also excellent risk advice to the board and this ability will help the board to be the one sitting in the driving seat to direct the company. The legal team has to have strategies for providing sound legal input with strong business acumen, in anticipating changing regulations.

In ensuring the fair and supportive regulatory reform, government relations activities must also be addressed. General counsel must act as the advocate of the company by utilising the industry association bargain with the regulator.

GC: Are there any other main business challenges that the company is grappling with at the moment?

RIS: There is an untapped market in Indonesia. To become one of the top five or top three insurers in the Indonesian insurance business, we as a company have to produce a value proposition for prospective customers, cover for all the various social and economic channels, and develop the ability to penetrate the untapped market and create the system of brokerage. Indonesia has such a huge population, with only 2.9% market penetration. Currently many of the population are in a household of mainly generation X and Y. So that will be the focus of the company, and we are helping the company to be able to achieve those goals.

GC: What does your workload look like day to day? What occupies the majority of your time?

RIS: As the general counsel of the company, I am of course the subject legal matter expert. Currently, legal issues are still dominating the daily workload. However, standardisation of legal work and IT have helped users to have faster and more immediate attention from the legal department. So aside from the helping with the legal issues, we are currently in the process of designing a platform for stakeholders to have their wholesale legal needs met in one IT application, in one single window.

We are asking our stakeholders what is their expectation of the legal department, and then, in a couple of years, we will have that kind of application.

GC: What has been the highlight of your in-house career so far?

RIS: Probably experiencing a fast-track career compared to my peers in the market and the industry. Despite being part of the millennial generation, the board has entrusted me to serve them with the company secretary function and also with the counsel of the company. I think I certainly understand that this responsibility has to be managed properly, and also as currently we are in the spirit of the Asian Games, I am co-opting the energy of Asia tagline to the legal team – that youth spirit. My team are the problem-solvers, and we operate as a start-up legal team within the company.

GC: What does your legal team look like?

RIS: We currently have a lean, but highly effective legal department. Currently we have three lawyers – one who is responsible for corporate legal and secretarial, another responsible for government relations, and another for litigation respectively.

GC: What has been the most challenging moment of your legal career so far?

RIS: We are currently helping the company to embrace a new era, and we are also repositioning our place from legal advisory to business advisers. We are now really trying to create initiatives that translate that vision of legal and business advisers. We are trying to really listen to the business units and respond to them. We are now even thinking about having an internship programme into the business units, so that the legal team have experience in the business unit. After that, they will go back into the legal team with the proper knowledge – not only sitting at the desk doing the legal job, but really knowing what the business person is doing and experiencing for a certain period of time.

GC: What have been the major challenges or activities for you and your legal team over the past year?

RIS: One is always about digitalisation. Everyone is doing this, and we are now also expecting to be able to adapt and support the company in the digitalisation process. Technology has been a topic of conversation within the industry. We are in the age of the digital disruption, financial technology disruption, and now people are looking at insurance technology (instech). So that will also be something that we have to be able to adapt to, and also help the company to compete with that.

In terms of regulation, insurers have to be ready to spin off their Sharia units, as required by the 2014 insurance law. We have to submit the blueprint for the spinoffs by 2020, and they have to have spun off by 2024, so this is becoming a hot topic of conversation everywhere in the industry. We have to be able to ensure that the process of spin off is running smoothly and successfully.

Now, the issues relate to how to ensure that when the spinoff company is independent from the holding company or the conventional company, it will be competing with the other Sharia companies in Indonesia, and not with the conventional company.

There will be a lot of discussion about how to also train the financial advisers. Currently, we have financial advisers that hold two licences, a conventional licence and a Sharia licence. But after the regulation takes effect, they have to advise just the conventional or just the Sharia businesses. So these are will be several things that have to be taken care of and discussed properly.

GC: What else have you got coming up on the horizon over the next 12 months or so?

RIS: The next 12-24 months will also be about how to simplify the insurance process, to help society increase financial literacy, so people will be able to understand an insurance product properly. We all know that there is so much complicated language, so we have to able to simplify that language into more commonly understood language for society. I think that will also be the process over the next 24 months.

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Brian Israel, General Counsel, Planetary Resources

For the eight years prior to joining Planetary Resources, I was in-house counsel with the US State Department, in the Office of the Legal Adviser. I spent the first couple of years handling international arbitration matters on behalf of US investors involved in disputes with foreign governments. I then spent six and a half years working on international technology matters – partnerships for the development of technology, for regulation of advanced technologies including outer space, and I also was responsible for international environmental matters, including in the Arctic.

I came to the State Department with a bit of an unusual background for an international lawyer, having focused on IP and technology law as much as international law. Because of my IP background and my comfort and facility with technical subject matter, a lot of the State Department’s work involving science, advanced technology, and innovation policy accreted to me over the years, and I was able to handle a lot of international technology transactions over the course of my time there.

Planetary Resources recruited me as its first general counsel a little more than a year ago. I think that they’d seen me in action in the years in which I was the US representative to the United Nations Outer Space Legal Subcommittee, and in space policy circles, crafting legislation for the next generation of commercial space activities. I had wanted to go in-house at a technology company, and this was a particularly compelling opportunity because the team is just extraordinary – it’s an exquisite collection of professionals and colleagues working on a very difficult world-changing mission.

I think I was as interested in space as any young person with a pulse, but compared to many I work with, it wasn’t a primary passion. I am more generally interested in technology, technological innovation and the research and development process – and space resource utilization, as a next frontier within the next frontier, is particularly interesting in this regard. And in that sense, working with a team of talented engineers and scientists on really hard problems – particularly ones that present difficult questions with regard to regulatory and economic dimensions, in addition to the technical dimensions – is quite satisfying.

Very few days have gone by in the last year when I haven’t done something entirely new to me – if not entirely new, period! But the leap was not as much as I expected, and actually eight years as an in-house counsel at the State Department turned out to be pretty good training. At the State Department, I found myself fielding questions that no one had ever thought about on quite a regular basis and I had to do something with them, so I found the pace of the GC role familiar. I think it uses a lot of the same muscle groups that I had developed in guiding large, international partnerships and transactions through to completion. In the past those might have involved governments, and the form might have been a treaty, but it was a similar skillset, a similar set of dynamics and similar challenges that arose, which felt very transportable to complex corporate transactions.

Very few days have gone by in the last year when I haven’t done something entirely new to me.

I feel strongly that the role of the general counsel, particularly in a technology company, requires enough of an understanding of the company’s technology to understand how to optimize legal transactions to facilitate research and development, rather than constrain it. I feel like I’ve had good success in doing that and working very closely with our technical teams to understand their needs, their interests and what the pain points are, and also to help them to understand the legal landscape and to craft creative legal solutions that dispense with things that might have placed drag on the innovation process.

I think that it’s quite important for the GC to be able to understand the technology and the business well enough to be able to provide legal advice not in isolation, but that integrates an understanding of the business and technical dimensions as well. The general counsel doesn’t need to be able to design the spacecraft (and probably shouldn’t!) but they do need to understand the key points of what challenges the engineers are facing, and where there are legal solutions that can mitigate some of those challenges.

On the practice management side, necessity is the mother of invention. Being a GC of a company at this stage, there is so much to do in any one day, across so many different things, that you need to be quite creative in managing work flow. I’ve taken advantage of the very talented software developers at Planetary Resources to create systems and workflows to manage how we handle non-disclosure agreements, for example. Part of it is process design, part of it is a little bit of back-end automation, but things like that make a difference not only in preventing me from becoming a choke point, but I think also have served the users of those documents well.

For some things, like funding rounds, you need the horsepower of a large firm to move with the speed and quality that we need. But also, in a startup that has big world-changing mission and vision relative to the size of its budget for outside counsel, I’ve had to be quite creative and sparing with what I do in-house versus what is outsourced. I’ve done some experimentation to figure out what’s possible, and whether we can do more with less. One example is that I’ve experimented with preparing some patent applications in-house, and worked with patent counsel to refine, finalize and file them – which is a large work burden in-house, but enables us to file for more patents than we would otherwise.

I’ve had to be quite creative and sparing with what I do in-house versus what is outsourced.

There seems to be smaller practitioners, even solo practitioners, with sterling credentials who have experience both with the very top firms and also in-house, who are providing services at comparatively approachable rates. There are all kinds of software platforms springing up too, that connect in-house legal departments with those people, who are harder to find. I can’t say whether that’s a trend yet, but it’s certainly interesting, because as a GC in a startup who is doing lots of different things on lots of different fronts, you have to be quite creative on how to stretch the budget for outside counsel. Anything that allows us to get the same level of quality for less is quite attractive, and something we will probably explore.

A fun part of the job is the chance to be a pioneer in determining how the international legal framework applies to space resource utilization and how the national legal frameworks plug into that, and that fits very well with my background. Right now, for example, I’m in The Hague at something called Track 1.5 diplomacy, where representatives of governments, academic institutions, companies and NGOs come together outside of a formal treaty-making process to try and develop a set of building blocks that might later be injected into a law-making process. But that’s a rather small percentage of what I do day-to-day. I do more in the realm of either corporate transactions, IP, contracts, export controls, as well as labor and employment law. There’s quite a lot of Delaware corporate law, for example, which makes it challenging to stay on top of, but ultimately makes for more certainty in the answers.

The general counsel of a company as innovative as Planetary Resources needs to see himself or herself as an integral part of that innovation engine. It’s too easy as a lawyer to be quite conservative and risk averse in ways that can choke the innovation process, so it’s incumbent on the GC to have a very good understanding of where the risks and opportunities are, and to have excellent judgement in balancing that to enable the rate of innovation that our investors expect, without taking on undue amounts of risk.

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David Yawman, General Counsel, PepsiCo, Inc

I started out at a big Wall Street firm. I received excellent training, and worked on different matters for different clients, but I aspired more than anything to work for one single client.

I was just a fourth-year associate when I transferred into PepsiCo, which was nearly 20 years ago – so I’ve essentially had a career within a company. When I joined, the law department had a reputation for insourcing as much of the work as possible, and that was critical to me because I needed to continue to learn.

That’s really been my story for nearly 20 years – PepsiCo is a place where if you do your current job really well, we will let you do something different, even if you don’t theoretically have the experience from a subject matter perspective. I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of different things internally that I don’t think I ever would have gotten if I had gone to the open market. So it’s been a good learning environment for me, and it’s in the DNA and the culture of PepsiCo to allow that to happen.

I’ve had the benefit of being at the company for a long time, so I think I have a good understanding of the business, the organization, the risk profile and the risk tolerance. But in taking the role of general counsel, the biggest learning curve for me was the necessity to really lift my perspective from any one particular part of the company, to an overall perspective – a broader view. The decisions that I’m involved in now definitely impact different parts of the company, and making sure that I understand and appreciate the multifactorial element of any one decision across the global business is really important.

Currently, I oversee the company’s worldwide compliance and ethics, public policy and government affairs, and legal functions. I often find myself cross-checking what impact there may be in any one of those departments, even when the issue doesn’t squarely fit within that particular department, in order to ensure that I’m not missing a potential impact of a decision made in one part of the company on another part of the company.

It’s hard for me to concede that anybody would be prepared, on day one, to handle all the various aspects of my role. No matter what background anybody would have, there’s going to be learning that would have to happen after you get into the role. I’m biased, but the benefit of having worked at PepsiCo for so long has meant not having to learn so much about the business, which can be very difficult to get to by itself. My time is very much pulled into matters that are global in nature, rather than the detailed parts of the business, but fortunately I have been able to learn the business from the ground up.

I do think that legal services, at the most critical moment, is a judgement-oriented deal.

I would love to be able to tell you about some Thomas Edison-like moments during my first 100 days in the job in which I have innovated and invented something that’s new and novel! I can’t say that I’ve done that. But what I would say, having practiced law for 25 years, is that there’s been ongoing, continuous improvement. You’re constantly finding ways to do things a little faster, a little quicker, a little bit more insightfully. Certainly the sharing of information and the storing of knowledge is an important part of what we do, and the things that we’ve invested in within the legal team are really around information preservation, as well as enabling more efficient flow of work.

Thinking about the evolution of legal services, I’m not sure that there’s some big cliff or huge step upwards, whether in-house or in private practice. I certainly anticipate that efficiency models will continue to come to bear. For example, possible technologies that are rooted in artificial intelligence, or that are driven to figure out how big volumes of work can be carried out more cost-effectively, or even some predictive models around the magnitude of risks in the litigation environment. I anticipate people will get faster doing what they do and there will be attempts to be more predictive about trying to quantify risks. But I do think that legal services, at the most critical moment, is a judgement-oriented deal. My mind doesn’t go to innovation or models that will ultimately provide answers, my mind goes to models that will help provide information that ultimately will inform the judgement that lawyers have always historically had to bring to bear.

The role of my team is to mitigate risk for the company. When you get into mitigating risk from a business leader’s perspective, that means doing something different or allocating money, time or resources. A lot of times, lawyers are very good at highlighting the risk, and saying that it’s a ‘big risk’ or that it’s a ‘material risk’, but I think in order for us to really effectively influence, assist and counsel our business clients, we actually have to be willing – and a little bit more evolved in our ability – to put a value on that risk, so that a business leader can ultimately weigh it against the value of the resources, time or energy that he or she might have to place in order to mitigate that risk. I push our lawyers here internally to be innovative in their ways of thinking about risk and how to put a value on that risk, which really is at the core of helping advise our business around making actionable decisions.

Frankly, a lot of the best moments for me are successes that are unseen – knowing that we helped advise or guide the business client to avoid a risk, so that the risk never manifested. In some ways, those are instances of secret successes that make a difference.

General counsel ultimately have to become masters of different vectors of influence.

The general counsel is certainly one of the go-to counselors for the CEO and the board, but it’s not just on the law, it’s on a whole broader series of topics – whether it’s ethics, public policy, corporate citizenship, even geopolitical risks. It’s the wearing of these multiple hats that has really evolved over the past decade – going from just being a legal adviser to being an ethical watchdog, dealing with rule of law matters in developing markets and ultimately being involved in protecting the corporate reputation. At its core, there’s still a fiduciary duty that the general counsel has to the shareholders, but the role has certainly broadened. Candidly, I almost view the title of general counsel as being unduly narrow as a description of the full role.

General counsel ultimately have to become masters of different vectors of influence. When I look to the north, I see a CEO and a board and the shareholders, and I have to influence them on the things that matter most to them. When I look to the south, I lead multiple functions, and I’ve got to ensure that there’s the right talent and skills and that I can grow the team individually as well as overall. To the west, I see my peers, and whether it’s head of human resources or the chief financial officer, I need to be able to understand their perspectives on things in order to collaborate. To the east, I see a lot of external parties, from government officials, to NGOs, to competitors and industry groups that I also have to engage.

In the past, some individuals would be good at one of those vectors and maybe two, maybe three. But now, I don’t think there’s any one of those vectors against which the general counsel can afford to be ineffective.

One’s ability to influence is rooted in having substantive subject matter competence as well as personal character – which means that you are trustworthy, and you live by a certain level of principles. Across each one of those vectors, I need to be substantively competent in the issues that any one of those groups cares about. And then I need to be good at the point of contact, just as a personal proposition: I have the character, my word is good, I carry through on my commitment with truth and honesty. And then you’ve just got to ultimately work hard and be humble enough to learn from and listen to everyone you come into contact with. Hopefully, over the course of time, with some intentionality about learning across each one of those groups, you develop both that sense of character and competence.

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Hazel-Ann F. Mayers, General Counsel, Simon & Schuster

When I was growing up, there was a TV show called The People’s Court, and I fell in love with the law through watching that show. My parents would tell you that when I was three or four, we used to watch The Paper Chase, and I said I wanted to be a lawyer even then! But I actually did not plan on going in-house when I started practicing law. In fact, my path to becoming a GC is a result of being willing to try new areas of the law, being flexible and, at various points in my career, expressing an interest in taking on more responsibility.

I started my career as a litigation associate at a big New York law firm, where I spent some time working on labor and employment matters. I found myself enjoying them a great deal – in part because the legal team was smaller than a typical commercial litigation team and I had more client interaction. I left my first firm and joined another large firm known for employment matters. After being there for a year, I joined Viacom Inc., a client of the firm’s, as a litigation counsel. While at Viacom, I worked with a strong set of attorneys (both in-house and outside counsel), and they continued to train me and mentor me.

Fast-forward to December 2005, when Viacom and CBS split into two separate companies. I transitioned to CBS Corporation, expanding my skillset by taking on new responsibilities in the compliance realm, and ultimately becoming the corporation’s chief compliance officer in 2009.

After six years in that role, I was promoted to GC at Simon & Schuster, a CBS business unit. I didn’t have much experience in the publishing industry, and also I was six months pregnant with my second child when I started in the position! I did not hesitate in making the transition though, because I welcomed the opportunity to partner more consistently with a defined set of business clients. I also wanted a better understanding of the business from the operational side, which I would not necessarily gain from a seat in corporate. And, both my S&S CEO and CBS Corporation GC were very supportive as I got up to speed with my new responsibilities.

My experience and background in litigation and compliance serve me well, as I’m used to jumping head first into trying to develop a subject matter expertise in the context of a litigation – for me, that keeps things interesting. I applied that same skillset in getting up to speed on issues that affect Simon & Schuster and the publishing industry as a whole. I’m one who learns by doing and it was very important to me to get a sense of what it’s like to see a manuscript proposal before it’s even acquired, and to understand how it becomes a book and ends up in the hands of a customer, or digitally on a customer’s e-reader.

There is a significant transactional component to my role. When I’m drafting an agreement, I’m mindful that it could be years from now when there’s an issue about its interpretation, so it’s not just about clarity in the moment, but creating language that in the long term does not have ambiguity and does not expose the company to risk. I find my litigation background to be helpful in this regard, as well as in advising the clients about potential pitfalls.

A mastery of a legal specialty might get you into this role, but it’s certainly not going to keep you in it.

As general counsel, I manage the legal and contracts departments and our team handles much of the day-to-day agreement drafting and review, manuscript vetting, and general counseling and advice. When we work with outside counsel, we base those decisions on counsel’s areas of expertise, their fit, their ability to develop favorable and flexible rate structures, and our focus on ensuring that we work with a diverse pool of lawyers.

General counsel are becoming increasingly adept business leaders and strategists. There are many aspects of the role that go beyond traditional legal advice and expertise. A mastery of a legal specialty might get you into this role, but it’s certainly not going to keep you in it. You have to be able to articulate legal advice in a comprehensible and succinct way, to weigh, balance and forecast risk, and to understand business strategies and implications – which frequently present in ways that are not obvious. Sometimes, the general counsel’s role is viewed as limited to providing legal advice for the c-suite, but you also must work with other people at all levels in your organization and learn the ins and outs of your business. Otherwise, you are not getting the full perspective that you need to be a strategic partner.

You need a certain mindset in order to think strategically. Part of that is about possessing some financial acumen and a better understanding of business concepts. It is also about being willing to step outside of your comfort zone. If you are a lawyer who is interested in the legal substance, but not operations or marketing or how deals are negotiated or the factors that might impact into your business, then a GC role is likely not for you.

Obviously, we lawyers also have to set an ethical tone and lead by example. One consideration for me (particularly as a former CCO) is: how do you do that in way that does not feel too prescriptive? One of my mentors described it as being mindful of overly medicating a patient – we must consider ways in which we can embed ethics into business practices without making colleagues feel like they’re being hammered over the head by Legal.

If I could speak to my younger self, I would tell her to trust her instincts.

Honestly, EQ is a big component of that as well. It’s about the ability to relate to people. One of the ways in which you can learn is by being an approachable person; you then are a partner and a collaborator, so people don’t feel they are running to the principal’s office every time they talk to the legal department. Business teams need to feel that they’ve got someone who’s going to sit down with them and figure out how to get from point A to point B in the most effective way. When you read the newspapers and you see situations where things have gone awry, sometimes it may be about a lawyer’s advice not being followed, but other times it’s because in-house lawyers have become siloed.

If I could speak to my younger self, I would tell her to trust her instincts and to know that she has good judgement – which is a critical component of being a strong lawyer. I’m a first-generation American (my parents are from Barbados), and I’m also a woman of color. Sadly, as I pursued my law degree, I didn’t know many attorneys of color and I didn’t see many in high positions in the legal community either. As I look back and think over my career, there have been several points where I have thought about not raising my hand, not giving my opinion, or doubted myself out of fear. I definitely had to affirmatively say to myself: ‘Trust yourself. You’ve got this.’ That attitude has served me well.

At Simon & Schuster, and at the CBS corporate parent level, we have internal committees and policies that are focused on areas of diversity and inclusion. We have a law department committee that’s charged with focusing on the diverse outside staffing of matters and, along with other internal committees, we focus on ensuring that a diverse pool of candidates is considered for our open positions.

It’s important for people to share their experiences, and that’s one way that I have been able to grow and blossom both as a person and an attorney: by spending time talking to people with more experience about the legal profession and their personal journey. I’m acutely aware that I did not have the opportunity until I was in college and law school to be exposed to people of color who were in the legal profession. So, I stay in touch with the next generation – at all stages of their paths. Future generations (particularly diverse individuals) must have a lifeline to those who came before them. That can be through mentoring and sponsorship, and also by providing a realistic picture about what life as an attorney is like. Each person should have someone who dreams bigger for her than she can dream for herself. That’s worked for me and I hope I do that for others.