Spotlight on… 

Nishtha is a corporate commercial lawyer, with extensive experience as a law firm practitioner and an in-house counsel in the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, technology and life sciences sectors. Currently, she is the legal counsel, Asia Pacific, at Schrödinger India, leading the legal function in India and Asia Pacific regions. Nishtha is also involved in other business enabling cross-functional legal projects at a global level. 

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?    

Streamlining and automating workflows and legal intake processes with the help of in-house inbuilt tools, and standardising the internal templates are some of the innovations that have helped the team manage output and deliveries efficiently, and seamlessly collaborate with different business functions. 

Our current vision is to build an AI based playbook with the help of the in-house development team, which can support business teams answer preliminary questions on boilerplates – acceptability threshold and negotiation strategies.   

What is a cause, business related or otherwise, that you care about, and why?   

DEI initiatives and sensitisation on harassment related concerns. These causes are the need of the hour and require active discourse and awareness on ways to ensure safe working environments for employees, irrespective of gender.