About

‘As general counsel and vice president, law and human resources of KLX, Roger Franks serves as a key member of the company’s senior management team. KLX is the world’s leading provider of aerospace fasteners, consumables, and logistics services as KLX Aerospace Solutions. It also provides oilfield services and associated rental equipment across North America as KLX Energy Services. In 2014, [Franks] was instrumental in orchestrating the spin-off of KLX from B/E Aerospace, an international public company with $2.6bn in annual revenue. Prior to the spin-off, he served as associate general counsel of B/E Aerospace from 2010 until the date of distribution. Having grown up in South Africa, Franks has a truly global perspective of a law department. This is of immense value to KLX because the company has operations on several different continents. The result is improved efficiency and collaboration – with everyone working together to achieve the company’s business goals. At a recent general counsel symposium, one general counsel called lawyers “tacklers or holders”, both of which can be detrimental to success. Alternatively, Franks is a very effective “blocker” who enables the business executives at KLX to accomplish their objectives while avoiding risk. Franks views the leaders of KLX’s business units as partners and has a deep understanding of the culture and objectives of KLX, along with its risk profile. His style engenders trust and loyalty among his colleagues and staff, making people both inside and outside the organisation want to collaborate with him. Because of this, he has been able to seamlessly integrate his legal department staff in order to efficiently function with outside counsel’.