How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

We prioritise legal issues based on their direct business impact, focusing on operations-critical matters and contractual obligations.

What strategies do you employ to ensure the successful digital transformation of a legal department while maintaining compliance with your country’s data protection laws?

Data protection compliance is a key element of our sourcing strategy. This includes clear guidelines on approved tools and their permitted uses.

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

A senior financial controller once advised me to always dry-run new processes end-to-end with all stakeholders in one room to identify challenges early. Simple, yet surprisingly effective.

Given the current geopolitical shifts and growing uncertainties around international free trade, has your company’s risk profile evolved, and are you taking measures to address these challenges?

Our metro-market approach, with a strong local delivery focus, has minimised the direct impact from international delivery challenges. Consequently, the impact has, to date, remained limited.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on that you think other in- house lawyers should be mindful of?

Developing suitable fee arrangements for external legal services will become increasingly important. Companies will need to evaluate the AI efficiency of their counsel of choice. It will be interesting to see how SLAs and alternative fee models develop as law firms integrate AI into their billing structures.

How can general counsel foster a corporate culture that supports ESG principles and compliance across all levels of the organisation?

Legal has a unique cross-functional perspective to identify ESG trends and help teams focus on business-critical concerns. Legal can see across silos and advise on emerging priorities. If Legal leads by example and applies that knowledge, it can be a key contributor.

AI has been taken seriously as a potentially revolutionary technological change in the legal world for a number of years now. Has it had a meaningful impact in how your legal team works in this time?

AI is increasingly helping to streamline routine tasks, including NDA reviews, post-merger document analysis, internal approvals, and legal research.

We are now implementing AI-powered tools at the core of our legal processes, though converting existing knowledge into AI tools requires effort.

A growing challenge is avoiding information overload: not every possible analysis adds business value.

What is a cause, business or otherwise, that you are passionate about? Why is this?

I love understanding and solving problems with technology. Likely rooted in curiosity – or perhaps a ‘lingering regret’ that I chose law over technology early in my career.

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?

The decision depends primarily on required specialisation and internal capacity constraints. We evaluate external firms on expertise, responsiveness, alignment with company values, and increasingly, on how well business stakeholders can work with the external counsel’s outputs.

How does your team contribute to the overall business strategy of the company? Can you share an example of a recent legal-led initiative that had a significant impact?

When challenges have a strong legal component, we aim to be part of the discussion to understand the approach and help identify suitable solutions.

For example, in the context of DORA compliance, we created cross-functional teams with strong Legal leadership to address the regulation from multiple angles. Legal was a key strategic stakeholder, driving understanding across the organisation.

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

To borrow a phrase from real estate: ‘AI, AI, AI.’ AI will remain a game-changer for how companies operate over the next decade.

Risk management will require an increasingly integrated approach. With rising uncertainty and abrupt changes, all functions must understand issues beyond their immediate responsibilities.

Obtaining approval from Legal alone will continue to be insufficient. Organisations must evaluate challenges from all angles to identify risks and opportunities.