About

Ben Gilbert, a University of Waikato-trained and Sydney-based in-house lawyer, is a commercial attorney supporting global information technology giant Microsoft’s Australia subsidiary. In particular he supports the teams engaged in licensing cloud products to mid-market and public sector customers, the consulting services business, and the marketing and operations business. He is currently the retail industry lead for Microsoft Australia’s legal team and also responds to day-to-day legal queries and drives projects that map cloud compliance in particular industry verticals to Microsoft’s license offerings. Previously, he worked in New Zealand in private practice at Chapman Trip in the corporate team, advising on M&A, private equity, contract matters, competition law, telecommunications, IP, and company incorporations. While there, he undertook secondments in the IT, packaging and media industries. He acted on matters including the closure of a prominent international intermediary’s New Zealand private equity funds; the establishment of a New Zealand private equity firm’s trans-Tasman fund; fundraising documentation (US$60m) for a New Zealand-based international clean energy company; the joint venture documentation for a major New Zealand logistics arrangement; and the cloud services licensing arrangements for Asia Pacific financial institutions. Gilbert has been recognised as a rising star due to his active engagement in broadening the boundaries of typical in-house legal counsel work, in clear concurrence with the future of the profession. His work centres around helping government agencies make the transition to the cloud and implement other technologies. He has worked on the development of an AI-enabled legal assistant to handle more mundane tasks, freeing up lawyers to work on higher priority or challenging work. Gilbert was acknowledged as an Australasian young in-house lawyer of the year in 2018 in the industry press and is deserving of recognition as a rising star.