About

General counsel, vice president legal and contracts and chief compliance officer for defence major, Thales, Dr André Körtgen reflects on the growth he has achieved over his professional career and what aspects in particular have been most rewarding: ‘Having been a commuter between in-house and private practice legal [prior to his current role, Körtgen was a partner at a Munich law firm], today it feels highly satisfying to manage the transformation of a legal and a contract management function and to guide a company in times of change. One of my key learnings was to understand the relevance of change management and to put the human being into the centre of all initiatives’. At Thales, his integration of contract management professionals into the legal function has been extremely successful, as has his transition to his dual role as chief compliance officer in addition to general counsel for legal and contracts and his work on the integration of Gemalto. ‘My management of a crisis project as a member of a cross-functional team was also highly rewarding’, he continues. ‘It was multi-level stakeholder management at its best – we created win-win scenarios by listening to our partners and practicing patience.’ Within the team, Dr Körtgen reports that ‘breaking up pillars and sharing resources between different business units has increased flexibility and helps control costs’, while training sessions have also had a noticeably positive effect on partners within the business. In the future, Dr Körtgen believes that ‘the in-house legal role will become broader in terms of needed competences and will become more embedded in the mainstream business of the company’.