The entire LinkedIn EMEA legal and public policy (L&PP) team is based in Dublin, and provides specialist advice to the LinkedIn business to help deliver its vision in region. The team works closely with colleagues in the US and other regions of the world in advancing projects for the benefit of the company globally. The L&PP team is comprised of 15 members drawn from seven countries, and is organised along functional lines, with dedicated professionals covering commercial law, data protection and privacy, product, employment, public policy and legal policy enforcement. Sue Duke is the global head of public policy and leads all government relations efforts. Ray McGrath, senior commercial counsel EMEA, leads a commercial team that supports the transactional needs of the business across the EMEA region. Grainne Gleeson heads up the employment law function, including employment litigation, while the industry recognised data protection, privacy expert and author, Denis Kelleher, leads the privacy team. The L&PP legal team has more than doubled in the last two years resulting in some significant promotions within the team. For example, Sue Duke’s role has been elevated from EMEA lead to global lead for the public policy and government relations team. Also in 2016, LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft which has resulted in the respective legal teams collaborating closely on key initiatives and processes. LinkedIn’s L&PP team prides itself on its agility and responsiveness and this has been enabled by the deployment of modern collaboration and conferencing tools, an external counsel management system, contract management software and an e-signature platform. One of the flagship projects that Sue Duke and the team has implemented is the legal elements involved in LinkedIn’s “Economic Graph” program. It is a digital representation of the global economy based on 560 million members, 50,000 skills, 20 million companies, 15 million open jobs, and 60,000 schools. Duke says that, ‘in short: it’s all the data on LinkedIn. Through mapping every member, company, job, and school, LinkedIn is able to spot trends like talent migration, hiring rates, and in-demand skills by region. By partnering with local, regional and national policymakers (in cities and regions like Amsterdam, Brussels, Manchester, Birmingham and Hautes-de-France among others) throughout the EMEA region, the LinkedIn Public Policy team has helped them to make better-informed, data-driven policy decisions on how best to create economic opportunity for their people’. LinkedIn’s commercial business continues to grow steadily in the EMEA region and the L&PP team has played a leading role in designing new go-to-market models like the LinkedIn Enterprise Programme. Finally, LinkedIn’s employees are its greatest asset and its number one operating priority. The employment law function therefore partners closely with the business to navigate the many and varied employment risks across the region including, more recently, the impact of Brexit and the introduction of new regulations such as gender pay gap legislation.
