About

Mitre 10 is a major New Zealand retail chain of home improvement stores which has been in operation for approximately 44 years, today, the company records an annual turnover of $1.4bn NZD through its 81 stores throughout the country. Mitre 10’s nimble, six-person legal team frequently steps beyond its core role of supporting the full scope of the company’s activities to take a leadership role on key projects and line up with key strategic initiatives. Established merely five years ago by current general counsel Grant Fraser, the legal function has been focusing on providing the tools and training that enable the empowerment within the business to ensure it can self-fulfil its needs for legal advice. Fraser and his team have been in the process of reviewing all key contract and process issues and has been looking for ways to develop templates that would enable the swift completion of all ‘business- as- usual’ tasks. As a result, legal spend has reduced substantially in the last 18 months. Apart from supporting a significant capital restructuring, the team has impressed with supporting the significant growth of the business in the last five years by means of supporting the sale of six company stores and facilitating ownership change in another four stores. In addition, the team recently supported the company’s recent move to a new head office in a new purpose built facility that includes an innovation centre and a third party leasing space. Mitre 10 CEO Neil Cowie sums up the team’s contribution to the business by underlining the fact that ‘rather than being gate keepers, the team is seen as business enablers working closely with their business colleagues and partnering with them to achieve our desired business objectives. They add value to our business as trusted advisors and are integral to the success of our business’.