What are the key projects that you have been involved in over the past 12 months?

The main key projects I’d like to spotlight are making the Agency Group AI-ready, meaning checking suppliers and use cases relating to AI usage, drafting contracts and helping the business and the clients understand the technical, ethical and legal issues with AI in this fast changing and demanding environment.

Assisting our clients in the change of the obligations relating to the MedKF-TG (media cooperation and support transparency act) which is the biggest public transparency act within the EU where all public spendings in relation to advertisement and support of media must be reported. As Dentsu is servicing a lot of companies who have to abide by this law we aimed to assist the clients to navigate the new or changed obligations.

What do you think are the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel to possess?

The in-house counsel has to be part of each team. We as “modern” in-house counsel must understand all processes and the direct work of all departments to assist them in their daily work. The times, where the in-house legal department was the “bottleneck” or the “show-stopper” have to end, as the main goal of an in-house counsel is to point to risks that might arise but also, and even more importantly, to play a key role in the growth of the company by also pitching new fields of business that align with or complement the basic business.

How can general counsel foster a corporate culture that supports ESG principles and compliance across all levels of the organisation?

General counsel are role models for behavior and are “thought leaders”. Often employees of our companies turn to see how the legal counsel behaves, what he or she thinks and how he is treating problematic issues. As an example, a legal counsel in Austria must be one of the first to use gender neutral or gender inclusive language and must be strict in this without blaming or shaming others who don’t, but we must point out that this is important and explain why.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on, of which you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful?

AI usage in the legal field and in the business. We all might check and scrutinise contracts and suppliers or AI Applications we use within our companies, but especially the in-house lawyers need to be mindful of the fast-pacing changes relating to AI. All our lives and works are going to be influenced by these topics within the next 5-10 years with a possible complete change in relation to staffing, job requirements and upmost possible liabilities arising out of exchanging human work with AI Output.