Team size: 7

Career Biography

Kristin is an experienced legal leader specialising in employment law, commercial law, corporate governance and legal change management. As General Counsel Nordics at the Adecco Group, she provides practical legal support to Adecco’s Nordic business divisions while ensuring compliance with applicable laws and Group requirements. Known for her business-oriented and proactive approach, Kristin has spent 15 years navigating the complex and evolving regulatory landscape affecting Adecco’s core businesses across the Nordics. Her focus is maintaining the Nordic Legal & Compliance function highly visible and a trusted partner across all internal functions and countries.

Before joining Adecco, Kristin spent a decade as an attorney at a leading Norwegian law firm, advising clients through complex restructuring and litigation matters.

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

In Norway, I was involved in a complaint to the ESA against the Norwegian Government. Adecco and Manpower jointly are part of the opened ESA case against Norway related to restrictions on temporary agency work. The EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) monitors compliance with European Economic Area (EEA) rules in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

I am also constantly monitoring and risk managing frequent regulatory changes directly affecting our core business in Norway.

Since my role covers the Nordics, I have played a key role in the implementation across the region of a unified Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) tool, which will streamline contract management, accelerate contract turnaround times and enhance consistency, compliance, and visibility over the entire contract lifecycle. The scope of the CLM program covers sales, procurement and intragroup contracts, among others.

As the in-house role continues to evolve from legal advisor to business partner, what strategies have you found most effective for stakeholder management and aligning legal advice with business strategy?

The most effective strategy is continuously keeping the legal team and members close to business. This involves being available in different channels, advocating for low threshold to reach out for support. The aim is to continue to be the most recognised and the preferred business parter to relevant internal stakeholders. Drop long emails and legalised language: “pick up the phone” or teams call and explain and translate legal topics to practical advice.

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

Learn and be interested in the business you are part of: find a passion for it. Dare to challenge and raise questions if you have business ideas or thoughts about old ways of doing things. Show that you know where the revenue actually comes from. A lawyer’s background and method for analysis and ideas can be used for more than just core law. Dare to simplify and be pragmatic but always based on knowledge and legal expertise. Regularly question and renew old concepts: guidelines and bureaucracy – may it be simplified, is it really necessary?

As AI becomes increasingly integrated into legal teams, and the pressure grows to ‘do more with less’, how can GC balance efficiency, quality and human judgement?

Welcome AI (legal) tools as a natural resource to your team. Focus on developing the team’s ability to ask the right questions and challenge conventional thinking.