Legal team size: 4

What country you are based in? Kenya

Looking forward, what trends do you foresee in the legal landscape over the next 5–10 years that companies should prepare for?

Public Private Partnership arrangements (PPP) are an important area that is gradually developing across different sectors, and which legal practitioners and entities alike ought to take maximum advantage of.

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

Whilst I have handled different transactions that involved a balance of various aspects, as legal counsel my most exciting and, equally challenging, engagement, was definitely related to public-private partnership arrangements. The engagement was unique and interesting as not only was legal expertise ultimately crucial in the transaction, but also the importance of other soft skills as a lawyer – particularly inter-personal, art of applying commercial/business judgement, collaborating skills, objectivity and the ability to engage different external stakeholders – came to the fore.

Ensuring the transaction was legally sound for the private financing institution – all factors considered – was a big individual win for me as a lawyer. It involved structuring innovative legal solutions, balancing the commercial and business goals for the entity, factoring in the requirements of several external public and private stakeholders and, at the same time, managing divergent expectations across board.

How does your team contribute to the overall business strategy of the company?

As part of the organisation, the legal team therefore has the advantage of knowing first-hand its business goals and strategy towards their achievement.

As the principal legal advisors, and with a “front-row” view of the organisation’s overall business aspects, we inherently support achievement of its goals, not by being an impediment to a business opportunity but, where legally viable, taking on our role as partners. By mitigating any legal risks, through implementation of innovative legal structures as solutions, we assist in taking advantage of identified business opportunities. As a team, we have consciously implemented individual and collective key performance indicators to keep abreast with the evolving business environment and the legal mechanisms required to adapt to it.

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

As a leader and colleague, I consciously strive towards influencing collaborative relationships with internal stakeholders and creation of an enabling environment.

My legal team has achieved this by ensuring our role is one that offers solutions as opposed to simply highlighting risks to the business. We have deliberately avoided a business-as-usual approach, through the implementation of various tangible legal initiatives geared towards supporting strategy. Partnerships and meaningful engagements with specific identified stakeholders, internally and externally, has certainly proven to be a key initiative for my legal department. This strategy leads to the successful achievement of desired results. Through this, our in-house legal team has avoided being an “impediment to business” and remained a key stakeholder for the business in attaining the desired bottom line.