Team size: 13

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

In line with Azelis’s growth strategy, the company acts as an M&A compounder in the specialty and food ingredients industry. In the last 12 months, Azelis has acquired eight business across our APAC and EMEA regions. The legal team played a crucial role in managing the legal work stream of these transactions, including during the post-merger integration process.

Another business-critical project for the legal team was the development of a supplier sourcing strategy, with a particular focus on Asian suppliers. Within this project the team defined key requirements, ranging from contractual arrangements, cooperation structure, ESG profile and risk management, which should enable the commercial teams to identify and assess both new and existing suppliers as “winners of future”.

At the end of last year, the legal team rolled out a holistic digital matter and department tool. In the next phase, this tool will be complemented with a contract module, which will further automate the contract review, drafting, signing and filing process. Both systems will bring significant synergies to the combined legal and business community as it allows for centralisng all legal requests, contracts, matters and data in one secure workspace for total visibility, effortless collaboration and maximum productivity.

Finally, the compliance team has continued its efforts to digitise the training material in support of Azelis’s Code of Conduct and several ancillary compliance policies. When performing regular fitness checks on Azelis’s ethics policies, the release of such updated policy is each time combined with the launch of digital training module which is managed within our central HRM system. The digitisation of these training courses caters for a uniform and consistent approach to delivering high quality internal training modules with a minimum use of internal resources.

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

There is a real benefit to regularly pause and look back at those events and experiences that have shaped you as a professional. For me personally, two experiences truly stand out.

First of all, after gaining my first professional experience as a corporate and M&A lawyer, I was offered the opportunity to set up a legal function from scratch as a first corporate experience. Leveraging on that first in-house experience, I was able to repeat that exercise in two other companies, first on a regional EMEA level and later on as head of a global legal department. This involved building a team as well as setting up the necessary infrastructure in terms of policies and procedures and legal tooling.

Secondly, I had the absolute privilege to head the legal workstream as Group GC of Azelis’s Initial Public Offering. I always look back at this transaction as the most intense period in my professional career. It was nothing less than a “marathon sprint” which required stamina, agility and resilience but above all great teamwork across departments and advisors.

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

With today’s global macro-economic headwinds and the current geo-political climate demonstrating a strong business acumen combined with visionary leadership are the most critical attributes to succeeding as a modern in-house counsel.

Now more than ever, senior executive management should be able to rely on proactive and commanding advice which considers relevant legal and compliance aspects but at the same takes full consideration the corporate strategy. In this respect, a profound knowledge of the company’s business is essential. This enables a GC or CLO to better navigate the risks, but also to secure opportunities associated within a rapidly changing regulatory landscape.

As part of any legal strategy, leveraging technology will inevitably lead to an improved service level to the business and efficiency gains within the legal & compliance department itself. The introduction of legal tech should however not become a goal in itself. The business case needs to be there, whether through measurable cost savings, better deployment of internal resources or an increased service level to the wider organisation.