About

Dirk Gasse is director of legal at Globalfoundries, a US semi-conductor manufacturer which until 2009 had been part of US chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and is now owned by Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC). The company has 10,000 employees globally and its 2012 turnover amounted to $4.5bn. Prior to his current role, Gasse worked for IBM where legal counsel traditionally ‘play a strong and active role and are well-integrated in the business’. However, at Globalfoundries, the legal department mostly provided advice when asked, but Gasse is convinced that ‘a legal department adds much more value as part of the business, if it is involved in major projects from the very beginning and offers more than just legal advice’. Gasse encourages his employees to ‘actively seek and fulfill this role’, while taking ‘commercial repercussions into account and develop strategies’. Under his guidance the legal department has successfully changed its approach and has been able to handle complex matters, such as the issue of ‘creating a new company out of a US-German chip manufacturer and a Singaporean semiconductor business with an investor from Abu Dhabi, all that as part of a global team’. When facing these challenges, Gasse needs law firms to ‘understand our business and risk profile’ while being ‘solution-oriented and not too careful’.