Career Biography

Over the past 12 months, I am proud of the fact that my department played a critical part in our company’s transformation and specialisation to be a global provider of polymer products for industrial applications. In due course of this process, two fundamentally important M&A transactions have been on our agenda. The legal department played a crucial role in negotiating and facilitating these transactions, ensuring seamless integration of the acquired businesses not only from a legal perspective, but also concerning compliance and corporate culture. Our team worked diligently to align the newly acquired entities with our organisational values and standards, fostering an environment of collaboration and shared goals. On the staggered transfer of discontinued operations to the new owner, the legal department played a fundamental role in managing the businesses to be transferred until closing. I have been entrusted with business responsibilities that are usually not expected within the legal function.

This links to the important attributes of modern in-house counsel. I believe that the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel to possess include business intimacy. It is vital for the legal department to deeply understand the needs, potential, and challenges of our internal customers. As lawyers, we need to be able to understand and speak business. This understanding forms the fundamental basis for becoming a trusted supporter of the business and allows us to be called in before legal issues arise. Additionally, it is key to identify business potential even in conflict situations, turning challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation.

Regarding strategies to ensure the successful digital transformation of a legal department while maintaining compliance with our country’s data protection laws, the key element is an entrepreneurial spirit and mindset combined with a strong business understanding. This enables us to identify the need and the right timing to digitalize legal processes within the organisation, driving change to ensure higher efficiency and quality of business decisions and processes from a legal perspective and beyond.