I was born and bred in Switzerland. I qualified in Geneva, then spent a couple of years in private practice before finding it wasn’t really my cup of tea. I moved to Ralph Lauren and spent close to four years at their EMEA headquarters.
The plan was to go abroad and work for Bulgari in Rome. That was my dream job. That didn’t happen, because I literally ended up on the road from Ralph Lauren in a fragrance and flavour company. I moved to Dubai with them as their EMEA general counsel, and between 2008 and 2012, the economic turmoil in Europe was terrible. I was spending more time with HR closing down plants than I did with the business. So, at some point, I said to my general counsel, ‘Please allow me to go and sit where business still actually thrives’. That’s what triggered the move to Dubai six years ago. I initially had a three-to-five year assignment, but then after one year, my group general counsel asked me to come back to Switzerland.
My husband and I were happy in Dubai and just one year of expatriation is not something that would have made sense in terms of career development either, so I moved to NASDAQ Dubai, then back to private practice to set up my business – high level in-house secondment. Around this time I also seconded for Microsoft, and then the person I was seconding for resigned and put my name forward, and I ended up getting the job.
I think the challenge in the tech industry is that the technology goes at a way faster pace than the regulation. What we see mostly is that governments are struggling to keep up. Sometimes they come up with what they think is fancy regulation but actually it just doesn’t meet the purpose, or it stifles innovation, or it just misses its target. So I think that the beauty of being in such a large organisation like Microsoft is that you’re actually spending this time on the advisory part, and you’re going to sit with governments to help them understand what type of regulation they should put in place, discussing how they should start thinking about those major disruptions that are going to come with the adoption of technology.
I think that what’s starting now – and will take a couple of years – is ethics in artificial intelligence, particularly responsible adoption of artificial intelligence. Because again, as one of the massive, hyper-scale cloud service providers and obviously key generators of artificial intelligence – powered tools, we have a massive responsibility to make sure that we sell that stuff to the right people, that we understand how the technology can be misused, and how it can put people out of jobs. Because all of those questions are driven out of the legal function at Microsoft, we have a huge role to play in terms of making sure that our customers are looked after, because every business is becoming a digital business.
I think that what one needs to understand is that you can’t be arrogant and think that you’ve figured it out. Nobody has, and it will take the brainpower of a lot of different people in a lot of different areas to actually get that right. So, we do rely on a lot of external resources, but we also, I think, try to put our neck out there and put forward solutions where we think that is the best approach to make sure that the technology doesn’t go south. n
I believe that being an in-house legal counsel here in Jordan and working within the banking and finance sector requires a good understanding of financial technology and electronic banking. Despite its issues, the use of technology within the industry is growing, so it is essential for in-house lawyers working in this field to have a good background in, and a sound understanding of, laws surrounding new technological innovations.
There are a lot of new laws and regulations in Jordan that support the financial industry. But a challenge is that a lot of the people living in Jordan are still not used to the concept of electronic banking. They still need time to understand how it works. For example, the majority of Jordanians still need time to understand how to pay their bills online – many of them still feel like they need to physically go to the bank to pay their bills. This makes the development of financial products here in Jordan particularly challenging.
The laws supporting the integration of Fintech are also growing. The laws surrounding electronic transactions, including the use of e-signatures, are also developing. I believe this is the start of the boom that will transform our industry.
Nevertheless, in-house lawyers are working in areas where there are sometimes a lack of legal regulations. If we look at the introduction of electronic transactions and the use of e-signatures here in Jordan, the laws around that are still developing. I think if laws are implemented in the right way, this will be a great advantage to all parties – including customers, companies and banks – and for all manner of transactions.
In general, some of the new laws implemented in Jordan revolve around income tax law, security rights in moveable property law and insolvency law. For instance, we have recently had new income tax laws introduced, which say that there is a new amount that should be paid to the government as income tax from a range of entities – this includes banking and finance companies. This may impact business here in Jordan because the amount might be considered very high. As a result, I think businesses will think very carefully before investing any money.
Most of the time I work autonomously, but sometimes I like to share experiences with colleagues who are dealing with similar challenges. When new regulations are introduced within the banking and finance sector, I like to share my opinion, as well as learn from the knowledge and experience of other colleagues who are working in the same industry. Sometimes there will be a need to go to external counsel at times when we need to obtain detailed advice on a particular issue.
Despite all of the challenges, one of the biggest advantages of working in Jordan is the security it provides. The business environment in Jordan is safe, stable and secure, especially when compared to some of the countries that surround it. This is a big advantage for Jordan. A lot of countries situated around it are experiencing a lot of challenges. By comparison, Jordan has emerged as an attractive place in the Middle East to work and to invest.
We do not have an abundance of natural resources here in Jordan. I think one of the things that support Jordan’s economy is investment opportunities. We have a lot of projects related to solar and other renewable energy. These projects are supporting the industry here in Jordan. n
Lebanon in the 21st century represents an evolving nation that has had to overcome major political and commercial challenges. Situated in the Levant on the easternmost part of the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon serves as a busy economic and cultural centre for the region, but one that is underpinned by a relatively small legal market. But, in-house counsel have been playing an important role behind the scenes in supporting businesses across a variety of industries.
It's a no-brainer
High literacy rates, coupled with low operating costs – at least compared to other Middle Eastern countries – have allowed Lebanon to cultivate a thriving business community of both local and foreign corporations. Capitalising on Lebanon’s potential, consulting giant PwC runs its Middle East legal headquarters from Beirut.
‘It is unusual to have multinational enterprises and multinational companies base their legal teams in Lebanon. That's an unusual thing, even though it has worked really well for PwC,’ says Fayez Khouri, general counsel, Middle East at PwC.
‘The majority of legal work conducted by PwC revolves around countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Lebanon is a very small chunk of the work that is being done.’
Being based in one country while also being asked to serve many others can be challenging. Using Lebanon’s capital as a base, Khouri often spends time travelling between the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the UK, and managing a team of 12 people across the Middle East has given rise to its own set of challenges.
‘The difference working in the Middle East is you are working with so many different types of laws. As a legal team, we operate within 17 different legal jurisdictions. Although we cover 12 territories, some territories, like the UAE, have several different jurisdictions.’
While being located in a hub serving many jurisdictions can be difficult, it also means that the human resource available is high quality and oftentimes abundant.
‘Lebanon is reputed for the quality of its human resources, especially in the banking industry,’ says Maya Abboud, head of legal compliance at Banque Libano-Française.
‘The high level of education plays an important role. We are a multicultural country, we speak three languages and we have a huge amount of diversity. This is why many investors see Lebanon as a hub for their business. The banking and finance industry has always been a reliable partner to these investors.’
Another factor making Lebanon an attractive business centre is location: geographically, Lebanon is very well connected to the rest of the Middle East, sitting along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
‘First, Lebanon’s geographical location is considered by many investors as an ideal strategic hub. It is said to be the gate to the Middle East, especially in matters of international trade,’ explains Abboud.
‘The link to other countries, flight-wise, is very good. People can fly back and forth if they need to – from an financial point of view it makes sense, from a talent point of view it makes sense,’ adds Khouri.
A confluence of factors make Lebanon’s prospects as a commercial hotbed for the region – both in the near and further future – promising ones. The port of capital Beirut connects Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran to the wider Middle East and the world beyond – an already critical shipping nexus, which will be of increasing importance with the eventual reopening of Syria for business and the flow-on effects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative both adding to the port’s necessity.
Does size matter?
The Lebanese legal market is a smaller market compared to other Middle Eastern countries, and, as a result, the in-house legal sector is also significantly smaller.
‘What is unique is that there are not as many multinational in-house lawyers as there would be if you were in Dubai or Riyadh or other GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) cities,’ says Khouri.
Being based in Lebanon has not slowed down legal operations. The in-house legal team at PwC has still successfully serviced the Middle East whilst being located in a smaller legal market. Instead, what have been challenging are the differences in laws within Lebanon and the Middle East compared with other legal markets, such as the UK.
‘In the Middle East, you are much more of a generalist. A lot of concepts that exist in England do not actually exist in the Middle East. For example, the concept of indemnity is not as common here. We can argue about having it in, or having it out, and what are the repercussions of having it in, or having it out. But, in the Middle East, the concept of indemnity does not really exist,’ says Khouri.
There are a plethora of legal concepts in English law that are yet to be addressed within the Middle Eastern regulatory framework. From a legal perspective, this presents a barrier for in-house counsel working across several jurisdictions. But those who we spoke to for this report say that the region is moving towards implementing stricter and more thorough rules and regulations for businesses to follow.
The devil is in the detail
Khouri believes the key to managing auditing regulations across different jurisdictions is for in-house counsel to be up to date and at the forefront of any regulatory changes. At PwC, audit work is at the core of the business, making compliance a key consideration – and one which must be done to high international standards.
‘The auditing profession is highly regulated, so we have to always be very mindful of what the regulators are saying, and what they are doing, and how they monitor the work we do. That opens us up to a significant amount of inspection and supervision,’ says Khouri.
‘If something should go wrong with one of our clients where we have done an audit, we need to be at the forefront of trying to supply information to regulators.’
The trend toward higher regulation is seen throughout the Middle East, and Lebanon is no exception. For instance, the global movement surrounding the need for more transparency and compliance within the banking and financial sector has gained significant momentum in Lebanon. Abboud’s role as head of legal compliance at Banque Libano-Française reflects a shift in banking process:
‘The central bank of Lebanon requires banks and financial institutions to have a compliance department, which should include a legal compliance division,’ explains Abboud.
‘This trend is not specific to Lebanon, it is widespread across the world. Whenever you have a sector with growing regulations at a very fast pace, you need to be able to handle them properly. You need specialists with a legal background in order to understand and interpret the laws and regulations and work on their proper implementation. That is why the profession is evolving very, very fast.’
In such an active regulatory environment, process becomes key. As general counsel at PwC, Khouri has the responsibility to implement systems that ensure compliance with regulations and allow for requests from regulators to be met quickly and easily.
‘If you know you are going to be asked to produce documentation by a regulator, you have to be very organised: you need to know where all your documentation is kept; you need to be able to access it; you need to have a set-up where you can review the documentation to ensure you are sending the right documentation to the regulators,’ says Khouri.
‘You need to be very internally aware of where things are and who the right people within the organisation are to assist you with getting that information.’
Insuring the future
The rise of stricter compliance regulations throughout the insurance industry reflects this shift in priorities.
Relative to the size of the country, the insurance and reinsurance industry in Lebanon is surprisingly active.
‘The Lebanese market is ranked as the 70th largest insurance market in the world with a penetration rate of 2.36%, which does constitute a very good performance knowing that Lebanon is only the 112th country in the world in terms of population,’ says Robert Habchi, claims and legal manager at Nasco Re Holding.
Nasco Re Holding is a leading insurance broker in Lebanon and in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Having started his reinsurance career six years ago, Habchi has overseen a surplus of insurance claims.
‘I believe that we have entered into an era in which compliance is starting to dominate our field with strict regulation at all levels, from internal auditors through to the expectations of clients and partners,’ says Habchi.
‘Compliance is becoming further important, particularly in light of the ongoing environment in the Middle East, suffering from regular political crises.’
The Lebanese insurance and reinsurance sector is a very mature industry. There are 51 insurance companies licensed in Lebanon, says Habchi. Therefore, adapting to new industry trends is essential to staying competitive.
‘If you want to survive in such a fierce and competitive environment, you have to question yourself, and adapt to our modern world.’
Team effort
The Middle East as a region does not operate in isolation. As well as grappling with the drivers of regulatory change that come from within the region, in-house counsel based in Lebanon are also required to react to global trends and issues. One of the most significant in recent times has been the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Coming into force in 2018, the GDPR is a regulation protecting the privacy of European citizens. It also includes the transfer of personal data outside of the EU.
‘Most recently, the introduction of the GDPR in Europe has been important. Even though it doesn't have a direct effect on the Middle East, there are aspects of it that we need to pay attention to,’ says Khouri.
‘The world is a very small place, it’s not country by country anymore – you are dealing across borders and across jurisdictions. So I think the introduction of the data protection regulations has brought about a lot of changes. We have had to change our standard form contract, we have had to change our policy.’
The effects of the GDPR on Lebanese business practices are a reflection of the rise of digitalisation within the country. In-house counsel in the region are required to adapt to these changes, especially when undertaking cross-jurisdictional activity.
A job to be done
In-house counsel across a variety of industries in Lebanon play an important role in supporting big business. As legal systems evolve, legal advisers remain at the forefront of changing regulations and industry practices. Yet the legal market is still relatively small in Lebanon.
When observing legal practices from a broader view point, Habchi observes key similarities throughout the Middle East.
‘The main difference, I would say, would be on the “emotional side” of Middle Eastern individuals, who have a certain sense of developing personal relationships, with a specific need to meet face to face with their interlocutor.’
The reliance on personal relationships and connections is an important consideration for in-house counsel operating within the Middle East. Yet as the industry continues to change at such a rapid pace, there will always be a place for skilled and talented in-house lawyers within Lebanon. n
I am originally from Lebanon – I lived there until I was about nine years old. After that, I moved to the UK and have spent the majority of my life in the UK. I am an English-trained solicitor. I qualified with my solicitors practising certificate in 2000. I did my two years of training in London, where I worked up until 2007. Then I moved to Dubai and lived there for five years, before moving to Beirut. Now in Beirut, I have been living here for the last seven years.
Now I am general counsel of PwC in the Middle East. I run a team of 12 people. We have eight team members based in Beirut, we have four in Dubai and we have one in Saudi Arabia.
I deal with a lot of important matters that concern leadership: regulatory matters, litigation matters and company restructuring matters. I spend a lot of time in between Beirut, Dubai and Saudi Arabia in order to carry out my role, which includes managing my team.
The majority of PwC’s work – like many multinational companies – means that although we are based in Lebanon, we deal with legal matters all across the Middle East. In fact, Lebanon is a very small chunk of the work that is being done by PwC. The majority is in Saudi Arabia, but we oversee these matters from both Beirut and Dubai.
PwC operates within a specific business environment. I would say that we deal with a lot of regulatory issues given PwC is primarily known for its auditing work. The auditing profession is highly regulated, so we have to always be very mindful of what the regulators are saying, and what they are doing, and how they monitor the work we do. That opens us up to a significant amount of inspection and supervision.
If something should go wrong with one of our clients – especially when we have done an audit – we are at the forefront of trying to supply information to the regulators. Sometimes we get brought into litigation when a company is in financial difficulties. So we have to be very careful and mindful of how we deal with inspections, questions and queries.
Another thing which is part of the business environment is the way things are done in the Middle East from a contractual point of view. You end up dealing with a lot of government clients and public sector clients. Therefore, there is usually very little flexibility when it comes to negotiating contracts.
One example is when we provide services to governments – we try to use our standard form. But governments in the region do not accept that, they have their own forms they prefer to use. They are also not very open to negotiating terms on their standard form. So you end up having to accept terms that are not ideal for the company. As a result, you have to manage the risk within the organisation. So instead of being able to be protected from a contractual point of view, you have to be extra careful. You always have to manage risk, but you have to manage it even more carefully when the contractual protections are not sufficient. n
I started my career as a lawyer with diversified experience, before moving to Banque Libano-Française (BLF) in 2007 to start my in-house career as a legal consultant. BLF is a top-tier bank that is well reputed for its strict compliance with laws and regulations. It also owns a financial institution, Libano-Française Finance, which operates on the financial markets. In 2013, I was named head of legal compliance division and given a different set of responsibilities and tasks. My role now is to ensure Banque Libano-Française Group’s compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, whether Lebanese, foreign or international. This means, inter alia, making sure all applicable laws and regulations are duly observed, identifying any non-compliance and remediating it, as well as watching out for new laws and regulations, analysing them, interpreting them, disseminating them to all relevant parties and following up on their implementation.
The banking and financial sectors are very heavily regulated. The central bank of Lebanon requires banks and financial institutions to have a compliance department comprising of a legal compliance division – independent from the legal department.
We are continuously witnessing changes at a very fast pace in the legal and regulatory environment. Therefore, the biggest challenge is to keep up to date with all relevant laws and regulations, including any amendments that occur, not only at the local level but also internationally. Our bank has subsidiaries in other countries, so we have to stay abreast of any changes in the legal environment in these other countries as well, including case law, as well as the latest regulatory trends. We need to think ahead of such trends and prepare ourselves for the implementation of new regulations.
Another challenge is interpreting international law or foreign laws and regulations and finding ways to comply therewith where necessary, without breaching local laws.
To overcome those challenges, as a legal compliance division, it is essential to have the broadest possible spectrum of knowledge in laws – not only specifically in our field, but also in those that might have an impact on the general business environment. We also need to raise awareness within all levels of the institution as to the importance of compliance and as to non-compliance risks.
It is also very important, as part of the business practice of any legal compliance specialist, to maintain good communication with regulators, one that is based on trust and on dialogue.
We sometimes resort to external counsellors, especially on special issues or for questions related to foreign laws.
With the continuing evolution of regulatory environments in the last years, and the expected evolution in the coming years, the need for qualified legal compliance professionals who are able to properly interpret laws and regulations and to instruct institutions on how to implement them will continue to grow. n
Since the first shipment of oil out of Oman in 1967, the Sultanate’s economy has been largely driven by oil and gas revenue. While that in itself is far from unique to the region, in some respects, Oman does stand alone. It is the largest oil and gas producer in the Middle East that is not a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and has the longest-serving ruler in the Middle East, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said, who has been in power since 1970.
Strategically located at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, Oman has been labelled as the Switzerland of the Middle East. The country has managed to maintain a peaceful outlook, despite sharing a border with war-torn Yemen, and being situated between powerful rivals, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Oman also overlooks one of the most important oil and gas shipping lanes in the world, the Strait of Hormuz. In 2018, an average of 21 million barrels of oil were transported through the Strait every day according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, accounting for a fifth of the world’s oil and linking crude producers in the Middle East with markets across the world.
‘The Middle East is heavily dependent on oil revenue, so whenever oil prices are high then, largely speaking, countries in the Middle East are doing well – although the reverse is true as well,’ explains Richard McLaughlin, general counsel of Oman Oil Company Exploration and Production (OOCEP). OOCEP, a subsidiary of the Oman Oil Company, focuses its activities towards upstream and midstream investments in Oman and abroad.
Growing pains
Oman’s oil and gas exports play a crucial role in driving the country’s economy. In a bid to maintain industry growth, the Omani government is introducing new laws aimed at encouraging private, international companies to continue to invest.
For example, a new law, labelled the Foreign Capital Investment Law, was revealed in July 2019, and will come into force at the start of 2020. It includes a raft of changes, all with the express purpose of making the Sultanate more attractive for foreign investment. The new regulations removed minimum capital restrictions on foreign investment, and allow for overseas investors to retain 100% ownership over their investments.
‘Everybody understands that you cannot rely on oil all the time. It will be depleted, and then the question is how you diversify your business. So Oman is following the UAE and Qatar and other countries who are doing that. So that is interesting in a sense that they are welcoming foreign investment,’ says one in-house counsel working in the oil and gas sector.
‘Foreign entities have limited options at present, for example, they can enter into joint venture agreements with local entities. So we join with foreign companies and enter into joint venture agreements with investors. Currently, in Oman, there's a lot of investment from Korea, China and, to a certain extent, France and other European companies.’
Though it is generally felt by in-house counsel across the region that this is a step in the right direction, if Oman is going to be successful in attracting larger pools of foreign capital, there will be further legislative shifts required.
State owned, state controlled
The oil and gas sector in Oman, as in most regions across the Middle East, is heavily regulated by the government. Unsurprisingly, that influence changes the way in-house counsel across the region must operate.
‘It brings a different dynamic – there is a lot of interaction with government, especially when it comes to oil and gas – and different government agencies have different drivers. Although you are a commercial entity, there are a lot of factors to consider. I think that’s something you need to learn pretty quickly when you are working in a government-dominated sector, because it’s not just the commercial interests that you have to consider all the time,’ says McLaughlin.
‘For example, if a company was thinking about releasing a drilling rig as it no longer needs it, the associated personnel that might have been employed to use it will also be no longer needed. A commercial company would say that it no longer needs that drilling rig anymore and it would terminate the contract and move on. In a government agency, employment is a big factor to consider. They may decide that the best option is actually to keep the drilling rig, and ensure all of those people remain employed.’
Balancing between government objectives and commercial obligations is key to success for in-house counsel working in Oman and across the Middle East.
Crudely opaque
The nature of the industry impacts everything, from the kinds of partnerships being entered into to the minutiae of the legal team’s day to day.
‘Although we are part of a larger group, we have our own autonomous structure. We have numerous joint ventures inside and outside of Oman,’ says McLaughlin.
‘We also have a lot of joint ventures with a lot of the big industry players: Shell, BP, Eni, Total Occidental, etc – so quite a range. In particular, we have acted on many transactions over the past few years, some of which were amongst the biggest in the sector.’
Working for a government authority lends itself to further considerations. When representing Oman, Orpic – a downstream business line for the oil and gas sector – has to ensure it legally complies with laws in other nations.
‘One legal challenge we have is to ensure that we comply with the applicable foreign laws as we extend our footprint abroad. Currently, Orpic has established offices in Turkey, India, Singapore, and China. Therefore, it is more critical for us to understand the laws in each country,’ says Elina Mohamed, general counsel of Orpic.
‘On the commercial law side, there are anti-corruption, antitrust and money laundering, laws for example, which can extend beyond your local jurisdiction. So those are what we call in law, “laws with extraterritorial effect”. This means that these laws can affect you, even though your principal business is based in Oman.’
In a bid to ensure legal obligations remain consistent across the business, Mohamed plays a key role in overseeing compliance protocols across Orpic: ‘As part of our compliance initiative, we make it a practice to have a face-to-face meeting with our advisers and lawyers in foreign countries. We are also trying to improve our compliance function internally, as compliance becomes more important as you start going abroad and expanding your business outside Oman.’
It is imperative that laws focused on preventing bribery and corruption, especially those which extend across jurisdictions, are complied with. Even if a transaction is deemed legal in Oman, it also needs to be deemed legal in the jurisdiction the business is associated with. Understanding these differences is essential for in-house counsel working in the Middle East and can present a steep learning curve for those who trained outside of the region.
Lorenzo Bruttomesso, head of legal at LNG LLC, started his career in his native South Africa, before moving to Oman in 2008 following eight years spent in private practice.
‘The essential difference, from a legal practice perspective, is that South Africa is a common law jurisdiction, whilst Oman is a civil law jurisdiction. In addition, there is no doctrine of judicial precedent in Oman.’
‘Agreements concluded between Omani and international entities are thus governed by predominately English law, with dispute resolution by arbitration, usually to be held in London, Paris or Singapore.’
Another factor is that despite the volume and size of commercial transactions, Oman has a small legal market compared to other countries in the Middle East, so in-house counsel have less choice when seeking the assistance of external legal advisers.
‘There are not that many international law firms here, so that reduces options at a local level, whereas, say, if you were in Dubai, that really would not be an issue. So that is quite different, but not a huge issue. It’s meant that we are not massively reliant on external counsel,’ explains McLaughlin.
Watts next
Fluctuating oil prices have long been a contentious issue across the Middle East. A combination of a prolonged global downturn and steady resource depletion has forced Oman to refocus its economic agenda.
The Oman Power and Water Procurement Co (OPWP) is a governmental body and the sole procurer of electricity and water capacity for the Sultanate, and is expressly aiming for Oman to become a regional leader in sustainable energy. Launching several major projects, OPWP hopes that as much as 30% of the Oman’s energy demands will be filled by renewable energy by 2030.
To meet this target, the OPWP announced in a 2019 press release the launch of its latest solar energy projects: ‘In line with Oman’s vision to diversify fuel sources through the use of clean energy for power generation, Oman Power and Water Procurement Company… is pleased to announce the launch of two solar Independent Power Projects (IPPs) in Oman. This launch follows the successful tendering of OPWP’s first utility scale solar IPP.’
‘With Oman’s continuous growth, implementation of wider scale solar power projects based on the IPP model will allow OPWP to achieve its objectives of sustainably providing power generation capacity.’
The Authority for Electricity Regulation Oman (AER) – Oman’s power sector regulator – has also taken steps towards encouraging homeowners in Oman to install rooftop solar panels. Its 2018 annual report outlines specific subsidies received by homeowners who have installed solar panels:
‘Article (18) of the Sector Law implements a mechanism through which the Ministry of Finance provides electricity Subsidy calculated by the Authority to licensed suppliers on an annual basis.’
In particular, the report highlights the Sahim 1 and Sahim 2 projects, which encourage large households and businesses to install solar panels: ‘During the first phase of the Sahim project customers that installed rooftop PV solar systems, at their own cost, were allowed to be compensated for PV electricity exported to a licensed system at the relevant approved Bulk Supply Tariff.’
Improving on the system, the AER implemented further allowances by enabling the privatisation of the energy sector. Oman’s shift towards renewable energy coincides with a global movement towards green energy, explains Mohamed: ‘Because of various issues worldwide, everybody is conscious of the fact that everybody has to be disciplined in terms of health, safety and environment.’
The road ahead
With a population of only 4.4 million people, Oman has transformed itself into an oil and gas trading hub. Regardless of its geographic location, the country has remained a safe and secure business and commercial centre.
‘As a country, Oman is very safe and secure. In fact, the 2019 Expat Insider survey, which was released by InterNations, ranked Oman at the top on the list of both the safest and the friendliest countries in the world for expatriates to live and work,’ outlines Mohamed.
‘But, at the same time, it also has its own challenges in terms of raising funds and attracting foreign investment.’
Nevertheless, in-house counsel in the region have witnessed continued efforts by the government to diversify Oman’s revenue streams – from law changes, to boosting foreign investment, and to increasing renewable energy initiatives.
‘Working as in-house counsel in Oman, there are both pros and cons. Specifically, some of the legal frameworks and regulations in Oman are still being developed and there are a lot of areas that require clarification,’ summarises Mohamed.
‘The flip side, of course, is that it also gives room for lawyers to argue on the interpretation of the existing law.’
Oman is an emerging market and, as such, provides opportunities to lawyers that would not be available in less developed markets. As Oman develops as a country, in-house counsel across the nation are exposed to unique and varied issues, challenges and opportunities. n
I am a multi-discipline corporate, commercial, projects (including financing), compliance, and oil and gas lawyer and I strive to be a trusted partner, guardian and team member to the organisation, management team and board of directors for legal and compliance support. My role is head of legal at Oman LNG LLC, thus leading, managing and developing an effective legal team to cater for the needs of the company.
Our challenges are including, but not limited to:
the implementation of robust compliance procedures to ensure that we are dealing and transacting with third parties who do not pose risk to Oman LNG and our stakeholders from a sanctions, bribery and corruption perspective;
adherence to the latest business practices and ISO standards, including ISO 45001;
keeping abreast of and complying with international laws and regulatory frameworks applicable to our international transactions, including retaining international legal counsel who have branches or offices within the jurisdictions where our trading partners conduct business, including anti-competition regulations;
the legal department being an integral part of the decision-making process.
Leading, managing and developing a small but effective legal team necessitates interacting and collaborating with external counsel, especially in matters of complex international finance transactions, multi-package plant construction projects, international acquisitions and mergers, and complex litigation and international arbitrations. External counsel also serve as the first port of call in relation to any legal and regulatory changes impacting the industry or jurisdictions where the company’s business is conducted, such counsel being local and international, depending on the needs.
Having been a practising attorney, notary and conveyancer for two decades prior to moving in-house has been very beneficial in my in-house roles, and is reflected in my relationship with and how I interact with various external legal counsel.
Having worked in South Africa previously, the essential difference, from a legal practice perspective, is that South Africa is a common law jurisdiction whilst Oman is a civil law jurisdiction. In addition, there is no doctrine of judicial precedent in Oman. Agreements concluded between Omani and international entities are thus governed by, predominantly, English law with dispute resolution by arbitration, usually to be held in London, Paris or Singapore.
Situated outside the Persian Gulf, Muscat is a business- and family-oriented city, with associated amenities. The Sultanate is home to diverse environments and topography, namely mountains, valleys, deserts and coasts, and flora and fauna unique to the Arabian Peninsula. The diversity and uniqueness of these environments are important with respect to sustainable growth and development, and they attract visitors, tourists, working professionals and families alike. Oman is often referred to as the Switzerland of the Middle East due to the fostering of neighbourly and peaceful relations. n
Oman, like many countries in this region, is highly dependent on oil revenues. Oman produces about a million barrels of oil per day, and about 80% of it is exported, mainly to China. The rest is exported into the local market to make petrol and aviation fuel.
Oman Oil Company Exploration and Production is only about 10 years old. It acts as both operator and non-operator in Oman and overseas. When the government issues exploration and production blocks here in Oman, the government often reserves for itself the ability to ‘back in’ to the development later. So they allow the foreign entity, usually, to invest and look for oil or gas and then if there is a successful development, the government can ‘back in’ at that point. We have been the de-facto recipient of those back- in rights, so we work very closely with the Ministry of Oil and Gas, either as a partner to incoming investors or as a party to these agreements.
My role is broad and covers the spectrum of general counsel, work and this includes significant commercial activities and transactions. A key challenge with large transactions is timing and resourcing them properly, because at times we have had numerous transactions happening simultaneously – so that can be a stretch, resource wise.
In Oman and the Middle East more widely, government entities are very influential. So if you look at Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman as examples, government-owned entities are highly visible. That is different from other places I have worked and brings with it a different dynamic.
There is a lot of interaction with the government and numerous other agencies as a result. Different government agencies have different drivers which have to be taken into account. Although you are a commercial entity, there are a lot of factors to consider. I think something you have to learn pretty quickly when you’re working in a government-dominated sector is that it is not always solely about commercial interests – and that’s quite different for many counsel.
Most of what we do is done in-house because we are specialist oil and gas lawyers. But we do seek external help from time to time. The usual things we seek external assistance on are either large transactions where we are looking for additional resource or large disputes.
Most oil and gas transactions, financings and partner agreements are governed by English law, but we often need a combination of English law and local law advice. The local law elements tend to be less significant in the overall context, but nevertheless they need to be checked. n
For many lawyers, part of the draw to move in-house is the opportunity to play a more direct role in the business, as opposed to offering purely advisory services from the outside looking in. It’s also the chance to develop their commercial acumen beyond the level a career in private practice would allow.
That allure is as potent as it’s ever been, as the profile of the in-house team continues to grow beyond the realm of traditional legal advisory, pulled ever closer to the commercial heart of the organisation. The skillset that this is cultivating within the in-house team is undoubtedly making the general counsel a better adviser, and it has the happy side-effect of preparing lawyers for top-level, purely business roles – and, as a result, the ceiling offered to lawyers looking to move in-house is as high as it has ever been.
Barclays’ Amol Prabhu is an exciting example of this rising ceiling. Belonging to an exclusive but slowly growing class of business people who transitioned from in-house counsel to the C-suite, Prabhu has spent 15 years at Barclays, working in Dubai, Hong Kong, London and now Johannesburg. He was most recently the head of emerging markets legal for EMEA, before accepting the opportunity to serve as Barclays’ co-head: Africa and the chief representative officer: South Africa.
Chief Representative Officer
Trading one eclectic job description for an even broader one, Prabhu assumed the role of chief representative officer and continent head for Africa in 2018.
While there are legal elements to his current purview – for example, there is a regulatory component together with the same legal considerations with which all senior business people have to grapple – it is primarily a commercial position, one that Prabhu explains has three core components:
‘The first part relates to front-line origination. We have a developed investment banking business that has advised South African and African clients for more than a decade. The corporate finance products we offer are focused on: international M&A, equity and debt capital markets, and leveraged finance. The goal is to continue to develop and grow that business, providing African clients with global solutions and global clients access to the African continent.’
‘The second part is more of a chief operating officer role: establishing the office here in South Africa from scratch – which should be completed by the end of the year – and ensuring that office is fully operational and regulatory compliant.’
‘To see a legal professional step out of the legal team and right into a commercial role is not as common.’
‘The third part is management and oversight across all of our Barclays businesses on the continent. While our investment banking franchise is well known, we provide Corporate Banking offshore solutions to clients, as well as an offshore Private Banking proposition. These businesses while related, are hugely different in the products they offer, their operating models and, most importantly, the clients they support: the spectrum is broad, from advising a sovereign at one end through the relevant corporate and financial institutions, all the way to individuals. With that breadth brings a whole range of complex commercial, legal, compliance and reputational issues that you have to manage.’
It’s this last component that largely precipitated Prabhu’s physical relocation to South Africa. It’s Prabhu’s name on the regulators’ ledger, which means he is the first point of contact for all things Barclays in South Africa and, if anything goes wrong, it is Prabhu that the regulators go to first – making someone with the requisite legal knowhow and confidence an ideal candidate to take a role that traditionally may not have been taken up by a lawyer.
Selling Down to Scale Up
The role was born from necessity, following a period of change in the structure of Barclays’ presence in Africa. In 2016, Barclays sold down its 62.3% stake in Absa (it still retains 14.9%), a local bank and Barclays’ defacto Africa entity for regulatory reasons. The sale required an examination of Barclays’ offering in the region and an assessment of what was required of Barclays in order to make the post-Absa era work, something that Prabhu involved himself in from his seat in London as head of emerging markets legal.
‘While I didn’t work on the actual separation between the two banks, I focused on the go-forward model. My initial work considered: “What does it mean for Barclays in Africa with respect to investment banking?” – because that is where I sat – but it rapidly transpired into asking similar questions of Corporate Banking and Private Banking,’ explains Prabhu.
Amol Prabhu, Co-head: Africa and chief representative officer: South Africa, Barclays
‘When you’re speaking with senior management, they want a composite view of what we’re doing for the African franchise across all businesses and how they interrelated, and so I found very quickly that I was working with all the senior executives across the different businesses in order to be able to work through and determine what that would look like. In parallel, I was leading the regulatory dialogue in South Africa and also with the UK FCA and PRA to say, “This is what we are thinking, we want to proactively be supporting our clients when it comes to Africa, what do you think, does that work?”’
‘With South Africa, it became very clear that we needed to establish a representative office, with an “on the ground” team if we were going to continue to do business there going forward.’
Prabhu’s whole career being focused on emerging markets, his coverage of Africa for over a decade and his deep knowledge of the numerous Barclays’ businesses made him the ideal candidate to represent Barclays in South Africa. In fact, Prabhu was so integral to the whole process he ended up writing the role profile for the job that he would eventually end up taking himself.
‘I wrote the role profile, not with the intention of taking the job myself,’ he explains. ‘I’d like to say I was the natural choice, but the reason my name came up was because the role was so expansive: it wasn’t just a siloed role of “We want you to do X,” it was the requirement of having management and oversight across all of the different businesses across multiple countries, dealing with whatever came through the door and also having that legal/regulatory expertise to be able to interface with the regulators.’
Preparation
A sample of the most senior executives in business will show that there is no one true path toward progressing to the top. To the extent that generalisations can be made, it is often financial or purely commercial professionals filling the C-suite. To see a legal professional step out of the legal team and right into a commercial role is not as common. Given the diverse (and increasingly commercially driven) portfolio given to in-house counsel and the skills already required of that role, this should not be surprising.
According to Prabhu, a life in law at Barclays prepared him to move upwards and outwards from the legal role, in very specific ways.
‘One is the ability to absorb and critically analyse large amounts of information, from numerous viewpoints, weigh it up and make a decision. That’s essential. Also, being comfortable with uncertainty – it’s not like you always have all the facts to hand. But you have to use your judgement and be prepared to take a decision which you are accountable for,” he says.
‘Inherent to that is an appropriate risk radar. I think, particularly since the financial crisis, the value that is attributed to individuals – particularly in the C-suite – that have a good sense of risk, control and governance, as well as being good business leaders, has increased significantly.’
View From the Top
Going from the adviser to the advised is another source of value for Prabhu, giving him the advantage of yet another lens through which to view legal advice.
‘It has really brought into sharp focus what quality legal advice actually looks like, and what a quality offering from law firms is. To my mind, there are simply three things:
‘Number one is knowledge. Technical ability is a given – if you don’t have the technical ability, you’re not even at the table. What I mean by knowledge is: do you really know your client? Do you know how they work, do you know their structure, and equally importantly, how much effort have you taken to understand the ultimate client (the actual client of Barclays) and the jurisdictions that they operate in? Their sector? Their position? The real law firm quality differentiator are the firms that have taken that extra step, so they can give you advice with the context of the ultimate client in mind. Speaking bluntly, there are around 20 international law firms in London that claim they are very Africa focused. Some of them need to realise that creating an internal Africa group and a nice glossy brochure doesn’t get you there and you get found out very quickly, because clients are smart.’
‘Number two is commercial. Yes, you’re looking for legal interpretation, but you’re also very much looking for guidance. In emerging markets, often the law is unclear and, sometimes there is no law on a particular issue, so you need lawyers who can handle that and provide you with coherent, pragmatic advice balancing not just the legal but also the regulatory, reputational and other issues. There’s not necessarily a right decision, but there’s a better decision that you can make.’
‘Technical ability is a given – if you don’t have the technical ability, you’re not even at the table.’
‘Number three is likeability. We spend hours and hours working on transactions; days and days on the road. Do you actually like the people that you’re working with? Irrespective of how good the lawyer is, if you don’t want to spend a lot of time with them or want to put them in front of your client, you’re not going to hire them.’
‘I’ll give you an anecdote. I call it the Euro Disney Test. We were in Morocco, had pitched for a deal and three of us were flying back to London the next day. The 2010 ash cloud diverted us to Paris. We landed at Charles De Gaulle, and I contacted my PA who said that the only way back was a Eurostar leaving at 11pm from Euro Disney which she had booked us on. So what do we do – we spend the whole day at Euro Disney. So my question when I think of using a law firm partner is: would you be up for the Magic Mountain rollercoaster or wouldn’t you? Because people who enjoy working together work better together. When you hit tough situations in a transaction, which you inevitably will, there is more of an impetus to get a better resolution. So it does have a meaningful impact, not just on the quality and experience of doing the deal, but the quality of the outcome.’
Laying the Path
Having run the gamut of vantage points within business, from the purely legal to the purely commercial, Prabhu has a range of experience rarely seen, even on the top rungs of the ladder. As such, he has a lot to say to lawyers at the beginning of their careers.
‘First of all, take time – take real time – to understand yourself. What kind of lawyer are you? Are you more of a private practice lawyer? Do you like that environment or are you more suited to in-house? You’ve got to understand yourself, understand what you like, what drives you – do you like variety or do you like to specialise? Do you like the commercial aspects or do you not? It just depends on who you are as a particular individual. I don’t think young lawyers take enough time to think about this. And it changes during your career, so these are questions that you have to ask yourself periodically and give yourself time to think about. And you have to be honest with yourself: what makes you happy?’ he says.
‘Second is work hard – there are no shortcuts here – but, importantly, you’ve got also to work smart. You’ve got to think to yourself when you’re working – what am I learning from this? How is it improving me as a person? What new skills am I deriving? How is it getting me to move forward in relation to the goal that I’m trying to achieve? That’s why the first point is important. You have to know yourself in order to know what goal you want to achieve going forward, and then you need to go on that journey to prepare yourself.’
‘The third, which rightly is getting increasing airtime now, is mental and physical health. Make no mistake – this job is tough. You have to work out what keeps you mentally strong and physically fit. Mentally, for me, it’s spending time with the family. When I get home my two-year-old son is there to greet me and all he wants to do is play. I find it really allows me to switch off, and makes me better at my job when I switch back on. Physically it’s the gym – I find it a great stress buster. For a junior (and senior!) lawyer, you really have to think what works for you, what helps you, and make sure you do it. Irrespective of how busy your life gets – and it will get very busy – make sure you make the time.’
The last piece of advice is something that Prabhu insists upon – securing quality mentors: ‘Seek out, work with, and learn from, excellent people who will guide you. You cannot make this journey alone,’ he says. ‘There are many people who have been/are instrumental in my career: two in particular are Simon Croxford, current GC at UBS who was my first supervisor at Linklaters and then at Barclays for nearly a decade, and one of my current bosses, Karen Frank, the CEO of Barclays Private Bank.
Things to Come
Does Prabhu see career progressions like his own becoming more common among in-house lawyers? Not necessarily. To him, it all comes down to two things: the individual and the organisation.
‘I think it is a very individual question. Throughout my career, I’ve very much enjoyed the commercial side of the business. So for me, making that progression, it was one I had thought about very carefully, but it wasn’t a hard decision for me. Again, it’s all about knowing and being honest with yourself. It is also important to make this transition in an organisation that supports you and knows the value you bring to the organisation.
‘The question i would ask general counsel is, “how legal really is your role?”’
Some individuals enjoy legal and the general counsel role, and don’t want to move across to a commercial role,’ he says. ‘But the question I would ask general counsel is, “How legal really is your role?” I know some GCs who have more non-lawyers reporting to them than lawyers. When they are in the boardroom, is the culture within that business that they only comment on legal issues, or are they a stakeholder at the table that inputs on all issues and has (and is expected to have) a view on business and commercial issues? I wouldn’t get hung up on title – I would dig a bit deeper. Yes, there is a place for advising on legal legal issues, but you always have to advise with understanding of the wider context. And I think when you get to that level as a general counsel, you have to view yourself – and hopefully the business views you – as a wider culture carrier and senior leader, as opposed to just the general counsel.’
A recurring theme in Prabhu’s career has been both his curiosity – a willingness to ask how things work, or why things are the way they are – and his confidence to get involved in things other lawyers would have shied away from.
It is this curiosity and confidence that guided Prabhu up the ladder at Barclays, and positioned him as the lead candidate for his current role. Now the question remains: where will that curiosity and confidence take him next?
In an exclusive extract from her new book You Didn’t Mention The Piranhas, Nelson Smith writes candidly about how it feels to be in the middle of a PR crisis:
In the second week of the crisis, the snow came. It had toyed with us for several days, threatening a festive dusting, but then changed tack and engulfed the country in a thick white blanket, mocking the valiant efforts to get trucks loaded and onto the roads by rendering many of them impassable. I needed to get to Rugby, but living at the bottom of a hill on a country lane with a rear-wheel drive car, I had no hope.
Wrapped up at home in comfy casuals, cut off from the world, for twenty-four hours I joined meetings and discussions with the team ensconced in Rugby by phone and by Skype. Conference calls served as a passable Plan B, but with many more people – external consultants and advisors and DHL and QSL employees – joining the calls than I’d met, attributing comments to people and parties was near impossible. A message came through from a colleague: if I could get to an open road, a four-wheel-drive taxi would be making its way towards me to take me up to Rugby.
The distribution centre had developed a reputation akin to the Hotel California: people arriving there for a meeting would find themselves stuffed into safety shoes and heavyweight jackets hurriedly scrambled from the Screwfix hardware store across the road, re-basing themselves in Rugby for days or weeks while they supported the recovery efforts in every which way they could. I was heading back up there for a meeting, but, with the added complication of the snow falling thick and fast, I anticipated I mightn’t be back too soon. Grabbing a bag, I filled it with clothes that would win me no awards for style or fashion, but would be entirely practical for several days snowed into a distribution depot in Rugby. If setting off on foot through a blizzard felt like madness, crawling along in the cocoon of the car at 20mph on the motorway felt even more ill-judged. But the car journey felt like a refuge from what would undoubtedly await. Closer to Rugby, the blizzard abated; the snow thinned. With the sun out, the memory of the Narnian winter in Surrey felt like a lie.
The key questions being assessed were: what was the root cause of the distribution failure? Could it be fixed, so that the service that the KFC system had been promised could be realised? And if so, how? And where should the mounting losses lie? It had been important to ensure from the outset that the KFC parent company in the US was kept well aware of the situation in the UK. A difficult conversation to initiate, perhaps, but it would have been far worse if their first awareness of the crisis had been via a comment on Twitter or in a newspaper article, of which there were many. It might not be the case with all multinational organisations, but, with Yum!, it felt very much like a pool of protective older siblings across the pond, ready to jump in and do whatever they could to support, guide and encourage. Messages arrived from the global leadership team: ‘We’re all thinking of you and cheering you on’, and ‘Let me know if there’s anything at all that we can do for you and the team. Even a friendly voice or ear to listen – anything at all we’ll do. Take care. You’ve got this!’ As we poured yet another coffee at midnight to eke out the second wind from hours ago just that little bit further, the messages truly helped. And our daily emails and calls back to the global leadership team ensured that there were no sudden leaps in knowledge, with the press or social media leading the charge and leaving them lagging behind. Despite our best efforts, though, a call or an email could only go so far to convey the slightly hysterical #ChickenCrisis fever that had enthralled much of the UK, and that had occupied every waking moment of the KFC teams.
And so they came. Organically, each person took the decision to come to support the team in Rugby and to be on hand to see the issues with their own eyes, and to discuss, eyeballing one another across the table, and battle through the issues and the solutions.
The airspace above London thrummed with the incoming flights bearing reinforcements: a tenured supply chain and distribution expert from within the Australian KFC business, the global CEO, CFO and general counsel of the brand, and further leaders from the global KFC and Yum! boards arriving from Louisville Kentucky, Australia and Europe, contributing their own commercial and legal savvy and negotiation skills. As the immediate operational and commercial challenges and the longer term picture were being scrutinised by us all, with each new arrival the freshly assembled Swat Team felt more complete (although the ‘Special Weapons And Tactics’ deployed were less munitions and military plans, and more Excel spreadsheets, diplomatic negotiations and legal, commercial and operational analysis).
Surfacing for air
After existing in a central London hotel with the core negotiating team for four days and nights, I realised that (i) I had not seen daylight without the protective barrier of a window pane for some time, and (ii) I had run out of clean clothes. It was 8.15pm. As some of the team headed down to the hotel restaurant for dinner and an escape from the now too familiar four walls of the board room, I decided instead to make a break for it, and go shopping. The very idea that I could simply walk out of the hotel and do something as ridiculously ordinary as going shopping took hold, and the excitement I felt as I ran (yes, ran) through the front door and into a waiting taxi is hard to put into words. A few minutes later, I was walking down Oxford Street, breathing in the clear, dark night and relishing the almost forgotten experience of being cold. Most of the shops were closing for the night, but the bright store front of M&S beckoned me in with a whispered promise of fresh underwear and some neutral basics.
I had lent my last clean top to our external lawyer, so both she and I were now in need of supplies. Plucking a basket from a stack by the entrance, I chose underwear and toiletries for both of us, and tried hard to select tops that were in the right sizes and which suited both the fifth-day-in-a-row-in a-board-room-with-the-same-colleagues and the about-to hold-a-conference-with-over-thirty-franchisees occasions. I struggled. I was sleep-deprived and found it hard to switch from a contract negotiation and drafting mind-set to an outfit selection one. As 9pm approached, the lights began to snap off, with the clear threat that the shop had every intention of closing as soon as the last few stragglers had left. A loudspeaker abruptly reinforced this warning. I raced to the tills.
‘Where, ordinarily, a theoretical idea could be discussed, here, the need for certainty and action was immediate.’
Hauling my basket onto the counter and tipping the contents out in a heap, I realised that I had forgotten to find a new deodorant for our external lawyer, as requested, so I jogged back to the cosmetics section while the cluster of M&S employees at the counter began to ring up my selection. ‘Sorry!’ I gasped once I’d made it back with a floral-scented roll-on. ‘I’ve been panic-shopping!’
The lady on the till laughed, and asked how on earth a person could find themselves panic-buying underwear, tops and floral-scented deodorant on a Thursday night. Goodness, how much detail to go into? I’d been in a meeting, I told her, which lasted four days longer than planned, and now I had run out of clothes. By now, she and her colleagues were finding the situation pretty hilarious. Who did I work for to have meetings like this? I was alone on my side of the counter by now, acres of darkened shop floor behind me, and five curious faces opposite, partly wondering what I was talking about, and partly just wanting me to get a move on so that they could close up and go home. KFC, I told them.
Well! The level of detail that this group knew about KFC’s current predicament was astonishing. While I’d been hidden away in the stagnating air of a meeting room, allowing the distribution issues to occupy my every conscious (and the occasional unconscious) thought, the world outside had been busy absorbing all of the emerging details and forming their own opinions on the situation. Discussions and negotiations that had once been sensitive and confidential were now fair game.
‘Oh, I bet you wish you’d stayed with Bidvest now!’ she told me, while two more M&S employees debated the wisdom in using a sole distribution centre in the ‘logistics golden triangle’ rather than using several spread across the country. With their wishes of luck and strength, and pleas for the KFC in Addiscombe to reopen soon, I gathered up my bag and stepped back out into Oxford Street. This was the new normal, and the only way was onwards.
As the last day of week two of the crisis merged into the first day of week three, the Swat Team had decamped to the board room of the London hotel. With all of the key decisionmakers for KFC in the room, we were intent upon getting a complete solution nailed down within a few short days. The mood was collaborative and positive, but desperately intense. Every contribution was listened to and evaluated, but there was no time for meandering debate. Where, ordinarily, a theoretical idea could be discussed and then explored in more detail offline, with a conclusion settled upon in due course, here, the need for certainty and action was immediate.
I sat at the long board table, and my mind wandered from the meeting to the crazy two weeks that had just passed. The urgent decision-making, the conferences spent standing in front of dozens of concerned and occasionally angry franchisees as they shot questions at me about what was happening to their businesses, and all that journeying back and forth to Rugby… Looking around the room at faces, once so familiar to me, each suddenly seemed distorted and somehow wrong. And their voices: once clear and definite, now blurred into indeterminable sound. I felt utterly confused. I could see mouths moving, heads nodding, but could make no sense of the words floating like helium balloons around the room.
Chris, sitting beside me, nudged my elbow, looking at me quizzically. ‘You okay?’ His face was obscured with pricks of bright light, and I couldn’t draw out the words needed to reply to him, to say that I wasn’t sure that I was okay after all. I felt scared. I was entirely out of my depth. How could I possibly be of any use to the team if I didn’t understand anything that they were saying? What if they realised that I was now a dead weight, and asked me politely just to go? Aware that I hadn’t been able to utter a word for some minutes, I shifted in my chair uncomfortably, lost my balance, and reached out to the table edge for support. My fingers, gripping it, were numb. So too, I realised, was my nose, which tingled as though I had walked into a hot room after spending too long outside on a frosty night. The voices in the room continued. Confused, I realised that some were directed at me, but I had no idea at all what they were saying as one word flowed continuously into the next and the next and the next, leaving me no time to decipher what each one meant. I felt like I was drowning, my grasp on the present now entirely released as I fell deeper and deeper.
‘Had anyone else ever done this? more to the point, had anyone done this and survived, their career intact?’
My boss stood at the other end of the table, brow deeply furrowed as he looked at me, his mouth moving and his words merging with the others in the room. In a few short paces he was standing next to my chair, pulling me into a hug, as I burst into tears. I have no recollection of what he said, but I can still feel the enormous relief of finally being thrown a lifeline: You’re not okay, and I can see that, and I can help.
‘Sarah needs to sleep! Is she checked in?’ said an American voice.
‘No: she came straight here. Where’s her bag?’
‘Here! I’ve checked in already. Take my room key. Someone needs to help her upstairs.’
Someone comforting, and help to my feet. More words. More movement. And I was out in the corridor, Paula’s arm around me as I walked blindly, crying silently. A lift. A room. A bed. Paula kindly ordering me to lie down as she fetched a juice and some water from the minibar. And then I was alone, and the room was dark and quiet. And then nothing.
You might think that, after a certain number of things feel completely surreal, you’d simply accept that reality has shifted and everything experienced is, in fact, entirely normal. Lying in the global CEO’s bed, recalling being led, crying, out of a room full of some of the company’s most senior leaders, is a sobering experience. I had no point of reference on which to anchor this. No similar situation that I could draw upon to remind myself that this was all par for the course, and many before me had done just the same.
Had anyone else ever done this? More to the point, had anyone done this and survived, their career intact? And what next?
