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

Over the past twelve months, I have been involved in a broad range of strategic legal, regulatory and governance initiatives supporting the continued development of the Luxembourg platform.

A key focus area has been advising on potential business expansion and licence-related initiatives, including assessing regulatory requirements, governance implications, capital considerations and operating model design. My role involved coordinating across legal, compliance, risk, finance and business teams to evaluate opportunities, identify legal and regulatory risks and support senior management decision-making. This work contributed to the development of future growth opportunities while ensuring regulatory expectations remained at the centre of the analysis.

I have also played a leading role in the formation and structuring of new investment vehicles and the ongoing support of Luxembourg-regulated funds and management companies. This included advising on corporate governance, regulatory requirements, service provider arrangements and fund documentation. The objective has been to facilitate product development and business growth whilst maintaining robust legal and governance standards.

Another important area of work involved supporting internal group restructurings and legal entity optimisation initiatives. The outcome was greater organisational efficiency, enhanced governance arrangements and improved alignment of legal structures with business strategy.

In parallel, I led and contributed to the review and implementation of a number of internal policies and governance frameworks. This included ensuring that policies reflected legal and regulatory developments, strengthening control environments and improving escalation and oversight processes. These enhancements have helped reinforce compliance, governance and risk management across the Luxembourg platform.

Beyond project work, I have continued to support the positioning of the Luxembourg office within the wider group. This has involved acting as a trusted adviser to senior stakeholders, contributing to discussions on the future development of the Luxembourg platform, strengthening relationships with key functions and promoting Luxembourg’s role as a strategic hub within the organisation.

Throughout these initiatives, my role has been to combine legal expertise with a practical and commercial mindset, helping stakeholders navigate complex issues and deliver sustainable outcomes. I take particular pride in being able to translate legal and regulatory requirements into pragmatic solutions that support both the business and its long-term governance objectives.

Can you describe an instance where your legal advice directly influenced business strategy or commercial objectives?

One example involved advising on a proposed expansion of regulated business activities. The original objective was commercial in nature: to broaden the range of services that could be provided from an existing entity while enhancing its strategic importance within the wider organisation. My role was to assess the legal and regulatory framework, identify potential constraints and work with stakeholders across legal, compliance, risk, finance and the business to determine the most viable path forward. The advice ultimately influenced the strategic direction of the initiative. The discussion shifted from a narrow assessment of legal permissibility to a broader evaluation of how the business could be positioned for future growth. By framing the legal analysis in the context of commercial outcomes, management was able to make informed decisions on operating model design, governance arrangements and implementation priorities.

More broadly, this reflects the way I view the role of an in-house lawyer. Legal advice is most valuable when it goes beyond identifying risks and helps shape business strategy. Over the past year, I have applied the same approach across a range of matters, including business expansion initiatives, fund formations, internal group restructurings, governance enhancements and the implementation of new policies and regulatory frameworks. In each case, my objective has been to help the business achieve its goals in a way that is legally robust, operationally practical and aligned with long-term strategic priorities.

I believe the greatest impact of legal advice is when it helps create a pathway for pursuing opportunities with confidence.

What key trends should in-house counsel be monitoring over the coming months?

Over the coming months, I believe in-house counsel will need to focus on three interconnected trends: the increasing complexity of regulation; the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI); and the changing economics of legal service delivery.

First, the regulatory landscape continues to expand at a pace that many organisations are struggling to absorb. New requirements relating to operational resilience, outsourcing, sustainability, digitalisation, AI, data governance and financial crime are often introduced by different regulators with overlapping objectives but not always with complete alignment. The challenge for in-house lawyers is no longer simply understanding a single regulation; it is understanding how multiple regulatory frameworks interact and what that means for business strategy, governance and risk management. As a result, legal teams are increasingly being asked to act not only as legal advisers, but also as translators between regulatory requirements and commercial decision-making.

Second, AI is fundamentally changing how legal services are delivered. While much of the discussion has focused on productivity gains, I believe the more significant development is the shift in expectations. Routine drafting, document review, legal research and knowledge management are becoming increasingly automated. This means that the value of in-house counsel will be judged less by the ability to produce legal analysis and more by the ability to exercise judgement, manage risk, influence stakeholders and provide commercially relevant advice. In many respects, AI is elevating the importance of the strategic adviser role rather than reducing it.

Third, we are likely to see continued evolution in the relationship between in-house legal teams and external counsel. Historically, external firms were often engaged to provide additional capacity or specialist expertise. Increasingly, however, technology is changing that equation. As AI tools become more sophisticated, some work that would previously have been outsourced can now be performed internally more efficiently and at lower cost. This will require legal departments to become more disciplined in determining when external counsel genuinely adds value and when technology-enabled in-house teams can achieve the same outcome. The discussion is gradually moving from “How many hours were spent?” to “What expertise, judgement or outcome was delivered?”

Finally, I believe legal departments will continue to be expected to do more with the same or fewer resources. Success will therefore depend on combining legal expertise with technology, data, project management and strong stakeholder engagement. The most effective in-house lawyers will be those who can anticipate change, simplify complexity and help their organisations navigate an increasingly demanding regulatory and commercial environment.

In short, the legal function is evolving from a provider of legal advice into a strategic business partner that sits at the intersection of law, technology, regulation and business strategy. Those trends are likely to define the profession for years to come.

How have you implemented AI to improve efficiency while maintaining quality, governance and integrity within legal teams?

Over the past year, I have been an active advocate for the practical use of AI within legal and compliance functions, with a particular focus on increasing efficiency while preserving the quality, governance and professional judgement that remain fundamental to legal practice.

My approach has been to view AI as a tool that augments lawyers rather than replaces them. We have used AI to streamline a range of activities, including legal research, document review, policy drafting, meeting preparation, summarisation of large document sets and the preparation of first drafts of routine communications. These use cases have enabled lawyers to spend less time on repetitive administrative tasks and more time on risk assessment, stakeholder engagement and strategic advisory work. Similar internal initiatives across the organisation have focused on workflow automation, knowledge management and operational efficiency improvements.

However, efficiency gains are only valuable if accompanied by robust governance. For that reason, I have strongly supported a “human-in-the-loop” model. AI-generated work product should never be treated as final output. Lawyers remain accountable for validating facts, assessing legal conclusions, exercising judgement and ensuring that advice is appropriate in the relevant legal and commercial context. Internal AI guidance similarly emphasises the importance of human review, verification and professional responsibility before any output is relied upon or shared.

Governance has been equally important. As regulatory scrutiny of AI increases globally, it is essential that legal teams adopt AI within a clear control framework. I support risk-based governance models that classify AI use cases according to their potential impact and apply enhanced review where outputs influence regulatory, compliance or client-facing activities. Effective governance requires legal, compliance, privacy, information security and risk teams to work together from the outset rather than reviewing technology after deployment. Internal AI approval and oversight processes are built around precisely these principles.

Looking ahead, I believe the most significant impact of AI for legal departments will not simply be faster drafting. It will be the creation of a more scalable legal operating model. AI will increasingly enable legal teams to analyse larger volumes of information, identify emerging risks more quickly, extract insights from historical matters, improve knowledge sharing and allocate external counsel more effectively. For example, AI can help identify patterns in legal spend, matter duration and the value delivered by external advisers, allowing legal departments to become more data-driven in their decision-making.

Ultimately, successful AI implementation is not a technology project, but a governance and change-management exercise. The objective should be to combine technology with legal expertise, strong controls and professional judgement. When implemented in that way, AI can significantly enhance productivity while maintaining the integrity, independence and quality standards that clients, regulators and businesses expect from their legal teams.