Team size: 5

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

Legal is uniquely positioned to support organisational resilience during periods of instability or crisis because it operates across almost every major business function. In our organisation, Legal is not a purely reactive advisory function, but a strategic partner to those functions. This cross-functional position gives Legal broad visibility over emerging risks or crisis.

My approach is to ensure that Legal brings judgement and calm decision-making to uncertain situations. Legal plays an important role in holistically connecting the various aspects of the issues at hand and support decisions that are both legally robust and operationally workable.

In order to fill these shoes, Legal should be close enough to the business to understand the same issues from different angles. For this reason, every in-house counsel is encouraged to move and act beyond their traditional (legal) comfort zone and learn new subject areas and engage with unfamiliar issues.

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

Resilience.

The role (and with its responsibilities) for a modern in-house counsel has expanded significantly in recent years. In-house counsel are no longer expected to advise only on traditional legal matters, but increasingly support the business in various other matters. As a result, they must be willing and able to take on matters that may not previously have fallen within the legal function.

In this context, factual legal knowledge remains important, but it is no longer enough. With the rise of AI and legal technology, information is more readily available than ever. What makes an in-house counsel stand out is the ability to be resilient under pressure, comfortable with ambiguity, and able to communicate clearly with different stakeholders.

What strategies do you employ to ensure the successful digital transformation of a legal department while maintaining compliance with your country’s data protection laws?

Successful digital transformation of a legal department cannot be separated from the digital transformation of the organisation as a whole. My approach is therefore to embed Legal early in key business processes, particularly procurement, the introduction of new tools, AI initiatives, automation projects, and other technology-driven developments.

This allows Legal to act as an enabler rather than a blocker. We support innovation by identifying legal and data protection risks at an early stage, helping teams design compliant processes from the outset, and ensuring that issues such as GDPR compliance, data.