Can you give us an idea of the sort of work your team has done recently?

Our team manages third-party risk, including due diligence and sanctions screening for all third parties Zoom engages with, including customers, vendors, and channel partners. The team also develops our compliance program, including controls, policies and training for the whole company worldwide, specifically anti-corruption, due diligence and best practices. Additionally, we manage our export controls programme to comply with the US trade regulations, including controls on software exports. Finally, I manage the Latam region for compliance, including training, program design, and implementation.

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?

The pandemic has very clearly changed the setting and way in-house counsel works. Working remotely, perhaps counterintuitively, has created new opportunities to interact more closely with internal clients and teammates. Virtual meetings allow more people to participate as compared to in-person meetings. This has broadened access to information and internal clients. Before the pandemic, sessions would usually involve people at the same level at a company, and then that person would trickle down knowledge to the broader legal or compliance team. With virtual meetings, people have gotten used to larger conferences, where more teammates can directly attend and get information first-hand.
Additionally, the virtual office has reduced the hesitance to reach out to an internal client for information or to work through an issue. The size of the office and the floor where it sits in a physical setting dictates who is comfortable approaching whom. I think collaboration within in-house counsel teams and between counsel teams and internal clients has increased.