Team size: Over 60 professionals (across legal and compliance)

What are the key projects that you have been involved in over the past 12 months?

A key focus has been to ensure the legal team has sufficient geographical coverage and expertise to support Waystone’s business as we continue our global expansion. This has meant expanding our legal team into the Middle East and APAC with the hire of a senior lawyer in Dubai, where he will support our new Management and Distribution Company based in the UAE and the expansion of our administration solutions business to Singapore. We have also strengthened our legal team’s presence in the US, which is another key market for us.

We have also focused on refining the work undertaken by our lawyers that sit at Group level to ensure we have sufficient coverage for group priorities. An example of this is having dedicated expertise dealing with vendor contracts to ensure compliance with DORA requirements and that the Group’s regulated entities are meeting all regulatory obligations regarding outsourcing.

In my role, I work closely on M&A and corporate structuring activities that the group undertakes. During the year we reached a deal to acquire a Luxembourg management company which is a key strategic market for the Gorup. We also completed a corporate restructuring, which significantly streamlines our corporate structure. This included multiple corporate mergers across various jurisdictions and placed the legal team at the heart of a business project.

What do you think are the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel to possess?

To me, the most important attribute of in-house counsel is having strong commercial acumen. The legal knowledge is a given; the skill is applying that legal knowledge in a commercial manner and delivering it in an efficient manner. There needs to be the ability to engage with and interact with non-legal colleagues in a manner that’s digestible and also realistic. In-house counsel also need to be willing to evolve, as a company’s priorities move you need to be able to evolve and move with them.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on, of which you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful?

It is almost a cliché at this point, but it is clear that the growing use of technology, and in particular AI, is the trend not just worth keeping an eye on, but also one that is going to be genuinely transformative to the legal profession. I see it in my own day-to-day workflow, using the various tools that deliver efficiencies in reviewing large documents, summarising long e-mail trails, and conducting basic first level research of both legal and commercial topics. The tools allow a world of information to be delivered in a more efficient manner, and it is the job of a good in-house lawyer to then use that information appropriately and, of course, to ensure it is accurate.