Team size: approx.1000

How do you ensure the legal function supports business resilience during periods of uncertainty or disruption?

Our legal strategy is fully integrated into the organisation’s broader risk management, governance and control framework. This enables us to identify potential risks early and to ensure that legal considerations are embedded in strategic decision-making rather than addressed once issues arise.

In an environment characterised by evolving and fragmented regulation, geopolitical uncertainty and technological transformation, resilience depends on anticipation. We therefore place significant emphasis on monitoring emerging risks, maintaining close coordination across legal, compliance, risk and business teams, and fostering open dialogue with regulators and key stakeholders.

The legal function also plays an important role in ensuring that short-term responses remain aligned with the organisation’s long-term objectives. During periods of disruption, there is often pressure to act quickly. Our responsibility is to help the organisation navigate these situations with both agility and discipline, ensuring that decisions remain consistent with our governance standards, our commitments to clients and our broader strategic direction.

Ultimately, resilience is built on trust. By combining legal expertise with forward-looking analysis and a strong understanding of the business, we help create the conditions for sustainable growth, even in uncertain environments.

How do you balance being a legal risk manager with being a strategic business enabler, and where do you see the biggest tensions?

Effective risk management is not about preventing business activity; it is about enabling informed decision-making and supporting sustainable performance over time. As General Counsel, our role is to help assess risks, understand potential consequences and identify solutions that allow the organisation to pursue its business objectives. This requires legal teams to engage closely with the business, understand commercial priorities and participate actively in strategic discussions.

The value of the legal function lies in its ability to find solutions. By combining legal judgement with a deep understanding of the organisation’s strategy and purpose, we can help create outcomes that support both immediate business objectives and long-term resilience.

How do you see AI and automation reshaping the legal profession, and how are you leveraging technology in your own legal team?

AI and automation are creating significant opportunities for legal functions. They can enhance efficiency, improve access to information and allow legal professionals to devote more time to higher-value activities such as strategic advice and complex analysis.

At the same time, their adoption requires robust governance and a clear understanding of the associated risks. Questions relating to data protection, confidentiality, accountability and operational resilience must remain central to any deployment of these technologies.

For legal teams, the challenge is therefore twofold: helping the organisation navigate the opportunities and risks associated with AI while also embracing technology within the legal function itself. Used responsibly, these tools can strengthen the effectiveness of legal teams and improve the quality of the support they provide to the business.

While technology will continue to transform the way legal work is performed, judgement, ethics and the ability to navigate complexity will remain at the heart of our profession. In that respect, AI is not replacing lawyers; it is reinforcing the importance of the qualities that define trusted advisers.