Building a strong legal team starts with clarity of mandate and excellent hiring decisions. Our mandate is to be business partners operating in complex, fast-moving markets. I therefore hire for judgement, intellectual curiosity and commercial instinct as much as for black-letter excellence.

Diversity of background, geography, personality and thought is non-negotiable, especially in a team covering a region like Asia Pacific and the Middle East and the product range we cover. If you get the mix right, it sharpens risk assessment, improves decision-making and each team member is a booster in the development of the next. This said, a diverse team only creates value if there is psychological safety. I prioritise a culture of openness, where challenge is encouraged, escalation is welcomed and accountability is shared. If we stumble, we do so openly, we fix, we learn, we move on.

Additionally, our capability building is continuous and relentless. Regulation, technology and products evolve quickly, so I emphasise knowledge-sharing and collective upskilling, from digital literacy and wide regional knowledge to negotiation and stakeholder management. Lawyers today must be comfortable with AI tools, regulatory variety and cross-functional collaboration. My team knows that the expectations are as broad as they are high and that ‘it’s not within my scope’ is not often the right sentiment. I encourage ‘reaching’. When we don’t reach we atrophy and that leads to indifference.

Equally important is empowerment. I give the team clear decision rights, proximity to the business and exposure to senior stakeholders because I believe these accelerate development and engagement. High performers stay where they feel trusted, valuable and slightly stretched.

Finally, I focus on operational discipline and simplicity of process. Openness as to metrics, resource allocation and realistic, smart use of external counsel, as well as constantly improving the way we do things, ensure the team spends as much time as possible on high-value work. A strong, durable legal team is not just technically excellent; it is culturally exemplary, performance-driven and strategically aligned.

Looking ahead, what do you see as the main opportunity or challenge for in-house legal teams?

In a nutshell, I think the defining challenge is, and will increasingly become, managing exponential complexity with finite resources.

Given that expectations are likely to keep on growing, that the human resources allocated to meet those expectations will not grow in lockstep and that technological disruption affecting both business models and legal delivery will continue, in-house teams will have to accelerate the move from being reactive advisers and transaction execution functions to proactive risk architects (whilst remaining deliverable-generating powerhouses, ever more efficiently, during the transition).

The flipside is that opportunity lies in redesigning the legal function. With intelligent use of AI, data analytics, automation and better horizon scanning, in-house legal teams will be able to re-focus on providing strategic judgement, guarding culture and facilitating governance, which technology will unlikely be able to do on its own and which the right teams are in a great position to do.

Additionally, legal teams who succeed in the transition will likely see increased job satisfaction as well as an appreciation in their value to their firms. In order to succeed, however, legal teams will need to combine technological fluency, commercial acumen and cultural leadership.

The future in-house team will be leaner, more tech-enabled, more embedded in strategic decision-making and absolutely steeped in the culture of its firm.