What are the most significant cases, projects, or transactions that you and your legal team have recently been involved in?

Across the group’s divisions – pharma and healthcare, crop protection, and sealing systems – the work of the past twelve months has spanned cross-border M&A, public-facing digital launches, and a substantial overhaul of group-wide compliance infrastructure. On the transactional side, we acquired a target in Germany and divested an entity in France. Operationally, we implemented a group-wide Compliance Management System and refreshed our records of processing. The flagship undertaking was AI Governance: a group-wide policy, an internal SOP, and a structured assessment framework now embedded in procurement, alongside bespoke AI clauses negotiated into supplier agreements. A separate highlight was the legal and regulatory architecture for ApoScout, our pharma division’s pharmacy-availability app.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Two principles. First, resilience is built ex ante, not in the crisis. For example, we invested in our AI policy, SOP, and assessment framework long before the AI Act required it. Retrofitting compliance under time pressure is more expensive and less effective. The same applies to records of processing and ESG due diligence. Second, in moments of instability, owners need plain language, not hedged opinions. The instinct to qualify everything for safety can paralyse decision-making. Decisions need to rest on accurate information rather than legal evasion.

General counsel often speak of the need to be strategic to reach the pinnacle of the profession. What does being strategic mean to you?

Being strategic means thinking in structures rather than individual cases. A framework that resolves a hundred future decisions (an AI assessment matrix, a clause library, a compliance system fitting three industries) is worth more than negotiating each case from scratch. But structures are only strategic if they reflect how the business actually operates. A framework built from legal logic alone produces compliance theatre; one built from genuine business literacy produces tools the organisation will use. The strategic move is understanding operational realities before designing the legal infrastructure.

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

Three attributes matter most. Pragmatism: the recognition that an 80% solution delivered on time often beats 100% solution six months late. Interdisciplinary fluency: the ability to translate between law, business, IT, and compliance, because none of the consequential decisions of the past five years – from AI Governance to ESG reporting – live within a single discipline. And ethical instinct: knowing that the question is not only whether something is legal but whether it is right. Modern in-house counsel sit close enough to the business to be asked both questions and far enough to answer them honestly.

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 that you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?

The trends I would flag are the speed and interlocking nature of EU digital regulation, with AI as the most demanding example. The AI Act, Data Act, NIS2, and Cyber Resilience Act arrive in parallel, not sequence, and reference each other. The more practical risk sits one layer down: shadow AI. Surveys suggest around 40% of employees, often led by senior management, already using private AI tools without policy or visibility. The instinct to prohibit makes it worse. The only effective answer is to provide sanctioned alternatives quickly.