Legal team size: 15 (across East Africa)

How are you bringing the legal department closer to your business colleagues?

I have taken the following actions in respect of my team to cement the legal-business partnership model:

Creating shared goals and KPIs between the legal function and the business, with service level agreements in place to monitor timelines and time spent with the business. Further, feedback from the business is received every quarter through mission reporting and KPIs dashboard reporting.

Adopting technology to improve efficiency, such as contract management and document management tools. We are also developing and automating FAQs by deploying a Legal Chatbot (LegalLan) to support business teams to self-resolve repetitive queries.

Assignment of legal teams to support specific companies and functions as the lead liaison, to ensure end-to-end legal and governance issues are addressed by them. This ensures that they sit in business unit meetings, contributing to both strategy and operational discussions.

Biography

Nannette is a seasoned legal and governance professional with extensive experience in corporate and commercial law across the East African financial services sector. At Old Mutual, she provides legal and governance advice to the Board and senior leadership team. She has led corporate transactions resulting in consolidations and disposals of operations to support the company in streamlining its legal structure and focusing on its core markets of operation.

A key career milestone was serving as the Legal Project Lead for the legal reorganisation of the Kenya life business, which successfully resulted in the conversion of one entity into a Closed Fund—marking a significant transformation in the business’s operational model.

Nannette has also championed the standardisation of legal and governance processes and the integration of automation to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the legal function to business operations. For instance, the development of standard contracts, checklists, and document guides empowers business teams to act within legal risk boundaries. Her proactive leadership style has significantly enhanced legal and governance awareness across the Group, by providing training on emerging legislative requirements. This also encourages teams—especially the legal function—to propose commercially and business-oriented solutions, rather than merely highlighting legal risks or issues.

Nannette joined Old Mutual Group in 2013 as an Assistant Compliance Manager before moving into the role of Regional Legal Counsel in 2015, which she held until September 2021 when she was appointed Group Company Secretary/Legal Counsel. She joined Old Mutual from KPMG East Africa, where she worked as a Risk Management Advisor for three years. Prior to that, she was a Senior Associate Advocate at Mwaura & Wachira Advocates for five years, starting her career as a Legal Assistant in 2005 and being promoted to a Senior Associate position three years later.

In recognition of Old Mutual’s legal excellence, the department was named Corporate In-House Department of the Year in the 2022 LSK Nairobi Legal Awards, and secured 1st runner-up in the 2023 edition of the same award.

Separately, Nannette has been recognised as an Overall Honouree in the 2025 Top 50 In-House Counsel Kenya.