Legal team size: 1,741 (including all of Legal and Corporate Administration)

Major legal advisers/ external counsel: Gibson Dunn, Eversheds, Mayer Brown, McDermott, Arnold & Porter, Venable, Norton Rose, Perkins Coie, Kirkland, Quinn Emanuel

What are the projects that you are most proud of working on over the past 12 months?

I am proud of our accomplishments on multiple fronts. We established a Strategic Deal Negotiations team to land and mitigate risk in large commercial projects as we continue to transition to more large scale, fixed-cost work; successfully negotiated our $1.3bn acquisition of Belcan, a leading global supplier of engineering, research and development services for the commercial aerospace, defense, space marine and industrial verticals; achieved operational synergies among my legal, procurement, corporate security, global real estate and contract lifecycle risk management groups; and continued to focus on outreach and upskilling our associates to help them innovate with GenAI.

I am particularly pleased that, this year, Ethisphere recognised Cognizant as one of the world’s most ethical companies due to our commitment to ethical business practices through robust programs that positively impact our employees and stakeholders and contribute to sustainable, long-term business growth.

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

The rapid advancement of GenAI technology and its potential to drive change and innovation across industries, including the in the legal profession, are top of mind. That said, the world is constantly changing, and it is more important than ever to stay close to our stakeholders, understand the challenges presented by an evolving legal and regulatory framework, and offer timely counsel.

What are the key things you prioritise to get the most out of your team?

Our top priority is to become trusted advisors to our stakeholders. We do that by leading by example and living our core values. While we have a wide-ranging set of responsibilities, ranging from legal to corporate security to managing and safeguarding our global real estate footprint, we are all one team, and we constantly strive to demonstrate excellence, push innovation, act with integrity, and own our choices.