Team size: 18

What are the key projects that you have been involved in over the past 12 months?

My team has been involved in a wide range of projects over the past 12 months, covering infrastructure and telecoms regulatory matters. For example, we have been leading the negotiation and conclusion of numerous agreements relating to the two largest subsea telecoms cables systems in the world: 2Africa and Waterworth. These cables land in some of the most complex regions on the planet and, when complete, will serve internet traffic to billions of people globally.

We have also been leading Meta’s response to the EU’s Digital Market Act, in particular the requirement to enable messaging interoperability between Meta’s online messaging services (WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger) and third-party services.

Finally, we are managing Meta’s response to calls by some companies for more regulation, including in the form of network fee payments for network interconnection.

What do you think are the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel to possess?

Modern in-house counsel need to blend the core attributes of being a trusted advisor to the business, while running ruthlessly efficient legal teams. As businesses continually push their legal teams to do more with less, it is more important than ever for in-house counsel to collaborate and communicate effectively with clients and teammates.

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, of which you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful?

As an employee of a large tech company focused on building AI services and infrastructure, AI stands out as both a major opportunity and a challenge for in-house lawyers. Already AI tools such as Harvey AI and Chat GPT – when used effectively – enable lawyers at all levels to be more productive and focus their energy on the highest impact work. I don’t think the potential of AI has yet been internalised by in-house lawyers, their clients and outside counsel, so there is still a long way to go in terms of educating and upskilling our teams to best deploy AI in our jobs.