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When asked about the future of the in-house legal profession, group head of legal and board secretary for GMG Dubai Pradeep Chandrasekharan says, ‘the role of the in-house legal [function] is rapidly evolving to keep pace with the changing needs of the businesses that they support. Going forward, in-house legal teams will be required to increase efficiency and do more with less, especially in the Middle East where many businesses are operating across international waters and multiple jurisdictions. Teams will also will have to embrace innovation and seek alternative ways of delivering legal services by investing in technology aimed at streamlining common tasks’. He is well placed to make such a prediction, given his experience in the region dating back to 2005 when he first joined Landmark Group in Dubai. Chandrasekharan considers his foremost strengths and career achievements to lie in the area of M&A, board advisory services, legal compliance and contract negotiation, and has also achieved considerable success in innovation within the GMG Dubai legal function since joining. Alongside training the team to act as business partners, he has gone to great lengths to improve the team’s stakeholder management as well as its teamwork. ‘It has been my mission to break silos so that there is better collaboration within the team and other departments’, he says.