About

Chris Walsh is the general manager – commercial at petroleum company Idemitsu, and leads a team of six professionals that has grown exponentially since its creation two years ago. As Walsh explains, the function now includes a ‘general manager of legal and commercial, a part time legal secondee, two commercial officers and a contracts and procurement specialist’ and despite its relatively short life is well-established as a team that is ‘truly integrated with the business and that the business sees it as an enabler rather than a road block.’ The team has also developed a number of innovations including various template contracts ‘used by the procurement and commercial team that assist our marketing department’. A significant, impactful project the team worked on was a major coal services contract with BGC Contracting with an approximate $700m AUD value over a five year term. This success was thanks in no small part to the team’s management of the process, achieved in conjunction with the procurement team and included ‘tendering and negotiating over a number of months and setting up a temporary additional office for key site-based employees to work on the tender and negotiations’. Viewed as a ‘very successful contract negotiation process’ by its business partners, the team continues be ‘heavily involved in implementation of this major transition project with members regularly on site and in risk and contract management processes to ensure successful delivery’. Walsh highlights a “one team” culture that is endemic in the Idemitsu business, and cites the ‘strong sense of comradeship’ and the recognition of the need to ‘support each other to achieve individual goals as well as achieving the common goal of growing and supporting the business’. Members highlighted for their work include Chris Walsh for being the driver behind building a ‘strong and well-resourced legal team that is a cost efficient and effective part of the business’, Nao Takano for her ‘understanding of the business and maintaining a positive and pro-active approach to developing her legal and other skillsets to help the team’ and Serge Radojevic who has been recently promoted to manager for legal and commercial, and is known within the company as ‘an invaluable team member who understands the commercial aspects and strategic drivers of the business’. Amidst a difficult time for the mining industry, the team is making ‘the most of limited resources to ensure the legal function is responsive and can service the entire business by driving down costs while delivering effective legal support’.