About

Rune Olav Pedersen leads a 50-strong team, covering a wide range of legal work. When he first joined Petroleum Geo-Services, the legal department was fairly small, with lawyers in various legal and business departments scattered around the company instead of centralised in one unit. After a restructure, all lawyers report to Olav Pedersen who in turn reports to the CEO, in a full corporate function: ‘mirrored to the larger operation, with the head reporting to me, with one junior lawyer and a paralegal to support them’. A fundamental change that Olav Pedersen made was to strengthen and revitalise the Intellectual Property department, based in Houston, USA. His main task, whilst restructuring the organisation, has been to prove that the legal team adds value and that the company should not view them as a department which creates problems, but one that people want to use. ‘It was challenging initially, to change the perception of the legal team, but we are now seen as a contributor and we demonstrate value to the business through the work that we are able to facilitate’.