About

Daniel Wall is the senior legal counsel and company secretary at Infomedia, a publicly-listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange and a leading supplier of information solutions to the parts and service sector of the global automotive industry. Wall began his post-qualification career with Blake Dawson (now Ashurst), initially gaining experience in litigation and dispute resolution. He then spent five years in the corporate insolvency and restructuring team working for company administrators and financial institutions to advise on debt restructuring and corporate turnaround strategies. While at Black Dawson, ‘a six-month secondment with a major Australian bank provided a valuable opportunity to gain in-house experience. Learnings from secondment were successfully transferred upon return to private practice and used to enhance overall client experience’, he comments. Wall subsequently transitioned to Infomedia, first joining as a corporate lawyer in 2011. In January 2016 he was appointed as senior legal counsel and company secretary with primary responsibility for the secretariat function, and immediately implemented a number of new initiatives. Wall states that ‘being involved in the journey of Infomedia and witnessing a ten-fold growth in market capitalisation during my tenure despite several challenging periods, as well as conducting a comprehensive refresh of Infomedia’s corporate governance programme and streamlining the delivery of legal services via implementation of technology’ are some of his proudest achievements of his in-house career. During his time at Informedia, he has worked on some major projects; for example, he was involved in Infomedia’s acquisition of Nidasu in November 2018, the leading provider of data and analytics services to the aftermarket segment of the automotive industry in Australia and New Zealand. Talking about recent trends of enhanced regulation and governance, Wall states: ‘strengthening of whistle-blower protections and the ongoing prominence of social media and the internet provide unprecedented opportunities to expose unethical and wrongful behaviours of corporations. Consequently, we will continue to see enhanced regulatory responses and strengthening of governance frameworks to provide a stronger framework of corporate accountability. In-house lawyers are well-positioned to assist organisations to traverse these ethical, legal, and governance, driven challenges to help the meet organisational outcomes in an increasingly complex and transparent business world’. He also thinks that the three E’s (education, experience and exposure) are significant predictors of career success. ‘Colleagues are well placed to assist with the latter two: experience and exposure. Within the business itself, sales, product, and other commercial teams can provide terrific exposure for in-house lawyers by allowing them to engage and interact with both their internal teams and with their external clients where appropriate. These interactions often challenge the in-house lawyer to engage on a deeper level with the business and to better understand relevant commercial drivers and objectives. By building greater trust and alignment with the business, rising stars can transition from providing abstract input to delivering strategic, value enhancing advice’. Finally, Wall thinks that beyond having competent technical skills, general counsels of the future will require the following skill sets to thrive: the ability to leverage technology, sound commercial judgement, grounding in governance and ethics, and strong EQ and willingness to learn and adapt.