About

‘The most enjoyable aspect of my role is the oversight that I get across the entire business’, Katherine Evans says. ‘It gives me a unique perspective among other managers, and lets me consider strategic and inter-related issues, and work with people at all levels, cultures and business areas’. Heading legal for the world’s largest kiwi fruit distributer, she is praised for juggling the novel demands of a complex international business model with limited resources. During her time in the role, she has taken considerable steps to centralise her management across all jurisdictions. ‘When I came into the role, the legal function was very focused on the onshore aspects of our business, and did not have much involvement in the offshore aspects’, she explains. ‘I have focused strongly on the end-to-end business, and worked with personnel to facilitate understanding of how legal and compliance flow through all operations and transactions’. She is currently test-running a first-of-its-kind global ‘virtual in-house team’ arrangement with Baker & McKenzie; a concept she herself created. ‘I think in-house lawyers have to invest the time with law firms to help them understand the business and its motivations, and also recognise that it’s a huge investment for firms to take that time to understand your client’s business. Zespri is a very unique creature and we do things a bit differently, so we want our external firms to be part of a long-term picture – because we’re both investing in the relationship’. Evans has gone to significant lengths to codify processes and reporting lines across all jurisdictions, and to formalise legal involvement in decision-making from an early stage. Her changes have included creating an automated paperless contract approvals system and moving the business’s extensive and widely dispersed IP portfolios to one global provider.