About

Simone Pelkmans started her career in 1995 at the Dutch law firm NautaDutilh where she worked for a little over four years in the firm’s IP and corporate law department. She was then approached by Unilever to join them as their Benelux IP counsel. ‘Given that Unilever was the largest brand owner in the Netherlands, I decided to take this opportunity and started to work at Unilever at the end of 1999’, says Pelkmans. Until 2008, she had a double hatting role, being both the local Benelux IP counsel as well as one of the global IP counsels working within teams in Rotterdam as well as London. In 2008 she moved to the Benelux business to become the senior marketing lawyer covering inter alia IP, marketing law, food law, licensing, sponsor and co-operation agreements. In 2013 she was asked to become the global and European general counsel for the company’s foods categories. Pelkmans started her current role of general counsel in January 2017, where she is responsible for the legal remit of Unilever Netherlands and Unilever Belgium, the local operating go-to market companies putting Unilever products on the market in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. ‘Unilever’s Sustainable Living Programme and high moral compass have shaped the role of the legal function from first asking ourselves “can we do it legally?” to “should we do it?”. I am proud to work for Unilever as it has enabled me to develop myself as the lawyer and leader I am today’, explains Pelkmans. One of her career highlights has been the shift in perception of the legal department: ‘I am able to convince the business that most legislation is enabling business rather than blocking. In those cases that I have to say no, it will always be combined with a proposal on how to include as little as possible adaptations to ensure we are doing the right thing’, says Pelkmans. She has also been at the forefront of changing the traditional division between marketing and sales lawyers in-line with the digital transformation that Unilever is undergoing. ‘I have implemented new legal solutions by working with alternative legal service providers in addition to our valued group of law firms and I made a start with automating some of the repetitive legal tasks. Our vision is “to help the teams to do it themselves’, explains Pelkmans.