Key team members: Heidi Winkler, Global General Counsel; Kristine Green Møller, Senior Legal Business Partner, Head of Legal Commercial and Legal Operations; Christopher Alexander Juul Hird, Senior Legal Business Partner; Johanna Wickenberg Linneballe, Legal Business Partner, Senior Specialist; Christine Weihe Kjærgaard, Legal Business Partner, Commercial; Jie Wang, Legal Business Partner; Jette Mose, Project Manager Legal & IP.

Team size: Seven

Jurisdictions your role covers: Globally

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

To begin with, B&O’s successful completion of an offering of new shares in connection with private placement, raising gross proceeds of DKK228 m. in November 2024. Secondly, the brand collaboration on B&O products with Ferrari and B&O’s sponsorship of Ferrari F1 cars and with Riva under Ferretti Group. Also, the brand licensing agreement with TCL on audio in TCL TVs. Furthermore, the revival of B&O’s dealer agreement templates to enhance engagement with B&O’s dealers in the overall strategy of execution, and to streamline terms across B&O dealers securing improved compliance and efficiency. Finally, the opening of several flagship stores around the world which includes negotiation of lease agreements, construction contracts, architect agreements etc.

How does your team contribute to the overall business strategy of the company? Can you share an example of a recent legal-led initiative that had a significant impact?

Annually, the legal team reviews the company’s strategic initiatives and based on these initiatives the legal team decides on a number of KPIs to support the strategic initiatives. The KPIs are tracked every month within the legal team to secure progress, impact and completion, and, where relevant, to handle any obstacles that need to be overcome by joint effort from the team.

An example of a legal-led initiative that has a significant impact on the business is the incorporation of brand requirements linked to the commercial terms in company’s dealer agreements to incentivise the desired brand behaviour. This includes numerous, specific and measurable requirements to how our dealers present the brand. This brand behaviour drives the implementation of the company’s strategic direction.

How do you approach talent development and knowledge sharing within your legal team? Are there any specific practices or programmes in place?

In 2023, the legal team established a dedicated Legal Operations function to secure a consistent focus on the development of the team and the team members to become even better business partners to the organisation. The Legal Operations function started out by preparing a maturity assessment setting out the current level of maturity of the legal team and the desired state based on different parameters. With an offset in the current level of maturity and the desired state, initiatives have continuously been put in place to secure constant up to date-legal knowledge, sharing of legal knowledge within the team, optimisation of tools and processes used by the team to ensure efficiency and compliance, securing the right approach towards the business (business partnering), and tools to monitor the business’ satisfaction with the legal team and the support provided by the team (NPS).

One of the measures that have been identified as a measure to secure knowledge sharing has been monthly legal knowledge sharing meeting where different topics are put on the agenda for discussion, other teams are brought in to share perspectives on challenges within their field of operations, newly gained knowledge is shared and templates and ways of working are shared within the team.

Besides the legal operations function, every member of the legal team has an individual development plan in place. The individual development plan consists of both performance and behavioural goals. All goals are set to ensure that the individual business partner develops its capabilities to support the organisation in the best possible way in line with the overall company strategy and in line with the desired state determined as part of Legal Operations maturity assessment.

In what ways does your legal team promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, both within the department and in your external legal partnerships?

Our legal team works with Insights Discovery profiles to understand the diverse personalities and improve both collaboration and stakeholder management. The team promotes equity and professional growth through an open environment. Additionally, a team member chairs the company’s DE&I Council.