Lynelle Bagwandeen is the company and secretary and general counsel of Netcare Limited, which is the largest private healthcare provider in South Africa and the United Kingdom, and has presided over a number of important transactions and litigations throughout her career.

Undertaking a career path that first saw her serve articles at a large South Africa law firm and then transition into an in-house advisor role for a mining house, Bagwandeen has a background in worked in structured finance and governance. She speaks of this time as a ‘great period of learning and honing of my skills on deal structuring, drafting and mediating the interests of varied parties’.

Taking a holistic approach to her work, Bagwandeen has many achievements to her name in a number of different areas, but when asked to name her top three career highlights she cites ‘the rollout of a compliance risk management matrix including the current POPIA initiatives, ensuring compliance with King III and King IV and extensive governance initiatives which has overseen the company being included in top governance indices on a local and international basis’, each of which show her expertise at risk management and transactions.

The aforementioned deals include all legal and compliance aspects to several mergers, including the Clicks Merger, the Akeso Merger currently awaiting CC approval, the acquisition of the minority interests in the UK, a Health Market Inquiry, and other due diligences and compliance initiatives. She comments: ‘I think it is very important to recognise and treat all risk including compliance and legal risk as an opportunity which would include the opportunity to strengthen existing structures, functions and processes and even more innovative business practices’.