Biography

In my over 30-year career, my experience spans various major blue-chip companies across a wide range of industries, including pharmaceutical, telecommunications, manufacturing and FMCG, primarily as in-house counsel. I have gained experience in matters including mergers and acquisitions, demergers, new product development, product divestments, joint ventures, and strategic business transactions.

My current role is that of Legal Director for South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa and Company Secretary, Haleon, a fast-moving consumer healthcare organisation. In total, I have been with the organisation since 2015, when it was still listed as GlaxoSmithKline, until the final demerger to Haleon in 2022. The company is a spin-off from the GSK Group, which separated its Consumer Healthcare business from the GSK pharmaceutical company. I joined as Legal Director, South and Southern Africa and Company Secretary for both the pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare operations of GlaxoSmithKline within Southern Africa. I have since served on the senior leadership team and as a member of the board. My key career achievements during these years include, inter alia, receiving the Global Legal Management Team Award, which is global recognition for hard work, and the GM Excellence Award for outstanding business partnering and cross-functional collaboration. I recently completed the Haleon Global Inspire Leadership Programme.

Prior to Haleon, I was Chief Counsel: South, Central and East Africa for Mondelez. I also worked as Executive Head at Vodacom and, during my time at Vodacom, I had the fortune of participating in the Vodacom Advanced Executive Programme run by Wits Business School, and received a Company Roll of Honour Team Award in 2009 for the implementation of the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act 70 of 2002 regulations when they were promulgated.

In addition to the organisations mentioned above, I have also been in-house counsel for other large organisations such as South African Breweries; SAPPI; and Edcon. Furthermore, when the Competition Commission was established, I joined the Legal Department as Legal Counsel, and this is where I gained knowledge of, and developed a passion for, competition law in a developing economy.

My qualifications include an LL.M. in Corporate Commercial Law, an LL.B. (Hons) degree, the CIS International Qualifying Scheme (ICSA), and certification from the Insurance Institute of South Africa.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organization’s resilience?

The legal function should always be viewed as a business partner and not a support function. Essentially, this requires that the legal strategy should always align with the ultimate business objectives. When the legal strategy aligns with the broader business strategy, a more focused and intentional approach can be taken to prioritise and strategically allocate resources as appropriate. An increasing number of legal functions are required to do more with smaller teams; therefore, prioritisation and strategic resource allocation become critical during periods of instability or crisis. It is also critical to conduct proper risk assessments to determine the impact of the crisis on the ultimate business strategy.

A key to a successful outcome is always to ensure legal input and involvement in all critical projects from the outset in order proactively to assess the risks that will need to be managed. In addition, there must be cross-functional collaboration and effective stakeholder management during any crisis. Where it is not practically possible to be involved in all discussions relating to the crisis, having a good understanding of the business is always helpful in conducting the risk assessment at pace in order to provide the business with pragmatic legal advice. This, in turn, enables swift decision-making.

In addition, it is of paramount importance to ensure that a relationship of trust and rapport is established with the relevant stakeholders. From my experience, I have noted that, if the business trusts its legal counsel, it does not view the legal department as a blocker or as a function that does not have its best interests at heart. Accordingly, it is more transparent and openly seeks legal counsel. In turn, it is also important for the team to be aware of when to ask for help, that is, to seek the support of external counsel with appropriate expertise in handling matters that are beyond its depth.

In cases where not all critical risks have been identified for various reasons, it would be important to conduct an after-action review to obtain a better understanding of where gaps were not visible or where assumptions were made, to ensure that the necessary corrective and preventative actions can be implemented.