How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure organisational resilience?

During a crisis, the objective is not to eliminate risk but to manage it intelligently. Legal’s priority is to identify and mitigate the most significant legal exposures first, creating the space to make informed decisions about lower-priority risks with less obvious solutions, some of which may ultimately need to be accepted. In these situations, time is often the most valuable asset, and disciplined prioritisation is critical.

Many crises expose pre-existing weaknesses in contracts, governance or processes. Being transparent about those gaps is far more productive than assigning blame or debating whether the issue could have been foreseen. Honesty enables faster decisions, whether that means strengthening contractual protections, temporarily increasing legal resources, engaging external counsel, or leveraging influence to work directly with regulators, customers and employees.

In reality, legal strategy is inseparable from business strategy. Legal risk is considered alongside operational, regulatory and reputational risk, enabling leadership to make informed decisions based on the overall picture. Organisational resilience comes from involving Legal as a strategic partner from the outset, rather than consulting it after key decisions have been made.

What is one leadership principle or practice that has had the greatest impact on your career as a GC?

Build relationships before you need them. Trust is earned over time by sharing knowledge rather than guarding it, and by investing in genuine relationships across the business. Those relationships become invaluable when difficult decisions need to be made quickly. If trust is established before a crisis, Legal is already seen as a trusted business partner, not simply a technical adviser.

What is the biggest shift you have seen in the role of General Counsel in the past five years, and how do you see it evolving further?

The biggest shift has been the evolution of the GC from legal adviser to business leader. Organisations now have access to far more data, analysis and sophisticated risk modelling, making them more confident in taking calculated legal and commercial risks. A GC who simply identifies legal issues without engaging with the commercial rationale behind them risks losing influence. Today’s GCs must understand the business well enough to help shape decisions, not just assess them after the fact.

This trend is expected to continue. While technical legal expertise remains essential, it is increasingly a capability that organisations can source from many providers. Therefore, GCs will be judged less on legal precision alone and more on the quality of their commercial judgement, and on how well they help the business calibrate the risks it chooses to take. Outstanding GCs will be distinguished by their commercial judgement and their ability to help organisations take the risks they want to take, not simply avoid them.