Team size: 11

What strategies do you employ to ensure the successful digital transformation of a legal department while maintaining compliance with your country’s data protection laws?

The claims team (part of the legal team) has some 400 open claims. Most claims begin as a Datix incident notification from one of the PPG sites. The team receives 100s of Datix incident notifications a day. The notifications range in severity from inconsequential matters to loss of life, across the PPG estate. Previously, the team processed the notifications manually: triaging their severity according to a severity grading of 1–8 and then notifying the external insurer, broker and law firm TPA via email. Earlier this year, working closely with the IT team and the Group CIO, the team employed the use of AI agents to process the notifications. The process is now automated, from severity triaging to onward external notifications. Having conducted both a Privacy Impact Assessment and data protection assessment, with the use of anonymisation where appropriate, the use of AI for processing the notifications end-to-end means that professionals in the team can free up their time for more strategic and high-value work in the Claims team, whilst ensuring that PPG’s obligations for processing sensitive personal data are maintained at all times.

The team is also deploying AI for report writing, commercial contract work and corporate governance.  The use of AI in this way has freed up valuable time for the team to focus on higher value input and tasks in the legal function, supporting commercial colleagues.

How can general counsel foster a corporate culture that supports ESG principles and compliance across all levels of the organisation?

I am now the Exec Sponsor for ESG. Creating a Steering Group which gives a voice to all relevant stakeholders across the business to escalate issues through to the ELT and to the Board is an essential feature. Also, reviewing and managing an ESG corporate risk register within the wider Health and Safety framework. The topic of ESG is a tabled agenda item at monthly ELT meetings and also quarterly at main Board Meetings and the quarterly Quality Governance meetings. We will review supplier contracts, contract templates and regularly communicate initiatives and reviews across the business.

More generally, EDI and ESG functions will work in collaboration, especially around social value matters.

How do you prioritise diversity and inclusion within your legal department, and what initiatives have you implemented to foster a more inclusive work environment?

As the PPG EDI Executive Sponsor, the team embodies the group EDI values.  We have undertaken recruitment to reach hard to reach groups such as refugees and ex-offenders (where the role permits). We use anonymized CVs via a CV platform and ensure that roles are advertised in varied publications and online platforms, specifically targeted to reach a wide breadth of the community, particularly aimed at candidates from non-traditional backgrounds.  We have a stated aim across PPG and within the team to achieve a 60:40 gender split in either direction and encourage applications for roles from all protected characteristic groups, with targeted advertising of roles. We undertaken regular EDI training and take on Summer interns, focusing on people from non-traditional backgrounds in the Legal Profession.  Members of the team regularly visit our sites, including our secure settings in prisons and IRCs, to see life from other perspectives. When running RFP processes, we make it a requirement that law firms share demonstrable work in the area of EDI and demonstrate a commitment to EDI values. As a team we share our lived experience with each other, to find common ground and also to see things from other points of view. I am particularly proud that our team has a very good mix of age, gender, race and sexuality, reflective of the wider community and the patients who we serve.

What is a cause, business or otherwise, that you are passionate about?

I am really passionate about social mobility. I see this as the primary blocker to people accessing opportunities to make the most of their talent. I feel very strongly that we must all actively target candidates from less advantaged backgrounds, particularly at the start of their careers, in order to change the face of the legal profession and make it more reflective of wider society.