José D Zuniga, head of legal, compliance, regulatory affairs and asset protection, Cuestamoras Salud

Cuestamoras Salud is a pharmaceutical distribution company. We have a portfolio of distribution assets that not only cover pharmacy, but also medical equipment. We serve the two biggest markets in Costa Rica: the public market – which consists of hospitals, clinics and the whole public health sector – and the private sector, which also includes hospitals, clinics and pharmacy outlets. I have legal oversight for compliance functions, regulatory affairs and value protection (formally known as asset protection).

Since COVID-19 our workload has increased significantly, especially in the areas of regulatory compliance, contracts, customs and public health bidding. Public health bidding has been a huge area for us, and in recent times it has obviously increased. The pharmacy and health sector have to buy products from the market, during a time when everybody is trying to buy the same products. This has been a really big challenge for us.

However, the biggest challenge in the last few months has been uncertainty. This is a fairly new disease and there is little known statistically and scientifically about the virus. So there are a lot of questions to consider, in terms of how to act and how to react. I believe keeping calm during this time can be just as contagious as the virus.  You need to make a proper assessment of all the information you have at hand and try to keep focused on goals. Our goals are keeping our employees safe, whilst continuing business operations.

One of our biggest regulatory hurdles has been getting the government to approve private testing. At first, health authorities in Costa Rica said no because they wanted to be in control of confirming who is a COVID patient and who is not. In order to get private testing approved we had to do some lobbying. We pressed the government with evidence of what had been happening Europe – in places such as Spain and Italy – to show that you need the private sector to help minimize and contain the spread of the virus alongside public officials.

Finally, authorities permitted private testing, providing the private sector with the tools to determine at an early stage who may be sick and who is not. From that we could determine who might need to be isolated. There was a business continuity incentive here, but it also had a public health component. It allowed us to stop and isolate a person, and ultimately minimise the spread of the virus within our warehouses.

With this we have moved forward on our proactive testing. This does not mean we are going to be testing everyone: we cannot test all 1900 of our personal. Instead we used statistical analysis and assessed the risk factor of employees. Data on where they live and how they travel to work were used to profile everyone in the company. This was done by experts in virology and statistical analysis. We had a separate team determining who was going to be tested based on their risk factor and exposure. In the end we did both reactive testing and proactive testing. Proactive testing is testing people who, though not showing systems may have a higher epidemiological risk. We have had proven results through this method.

From a legal standpoint, this testing involved a lot of negotiations. We had to negotiate with the service provider and our employees. The testing program was voluntary and as a result required consent from individuals. We also had to manage privacy issues surrounding access to and handling of employees’ private medical information.

Nevertheless, we obviously have inter-regulatory obligations with the government. When we determine through private testing that someone is positive with COVID, we need to inform the health authorities immediately. There is a lot going on.

Uplifting our digital capabilities on all fronts of the business has also been key. We have had to enhance our processes, and are currently going through a digital transformation right now. COVID has confirmed to us that this is the right way to go. We started the project at the end of the third quarter last year, but recent events made us move faster in order to take advantage of that opportunity.

The changing role of the workplace is also another area that needs to be defined. It is important to comply with a new normal. Working from home has shown there has been no impact on productivity in terms of results. If you are going to open your central offices, they have to serve a different purpose than what you are doing at home. The workplace has to become a beacon of corporate culture. That means developing and enforcing culture, so that people feel compelled to go to work.

We also need to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration spaces, whilst keeping in mind all the regulations in terms of interactions. This is especially important when talking about innovation. We need to be able to provide space for creative opportunities, for the conversations you have with fellow colleagues in the hallways. Those spontaneous conversations that generate interesting ideas may be important for the company. That is one of the biggest burdens about working from home, you do not have those spontaneous opportunities to discuss anything with anyone else. Innovation does not happen when you plan it to happen. Going forward this is one of the things we are trying to deal with. We are working and trying to design what our idea of ‘offices of the future’ will be. This has enormous legal implications all-round.

Part of managing a crisis is providing emotional support to employees, and this has been a top priority. We set up a program within which our human resource team followed up with employees. This entailed picking up the phone and speaking to each and every member of staff who was working from home. It was important as a company to hear their worries and hear their concerns. Accordingly, we developed a program to address all the challenging aspects of working from home, from creating a proper physical space to task programming, organisation and leadership skills. By doing this we found our employees were more motivated. This is how we have managed to stay focused and deliver results.

Our mission is to keep access and supply of medications open for all. This is a goal that motivates our teams, because they understand the importance of what they are doing. Considering all challenges we have experienced during this pandemic, we have managed to maintain company results because of the effectiveness and productivity of our people. 

Overview: Peru

During COVID-19, the Peruvian government has approved transitory regulations that, by making the management of labor relations more flexible, have allowed the continuity of labor relationships. For example, the Emergency Decree extraordinarily allows employers to apply leave without payment to its employees, provided that it is approved by the Ministry of Labor. In addition, regulations for remote work have been issued, which have allowed employers to vary form face-to-face provision of services to home office, with a less rigid regulation than that of telework, which already existed in our legislation.

In any case, this flexibility has a temporary scope. Labor relations in Peru are mainly ruled by the provisions contained in the Labor Productivity and Competitiveness Law and by the labor case law. Peruvian labor laws and, above all, labor case law, have quite a protectionist slant toward employees. For example, according to Peruvian legislation, temporary hiring is an exception and, as such, it has various requirements for its validity, which are also strictly controlled by the authorities. In addition, the constitutional case law has determined that an employee can request his or her replacement in the event of an unjustified dismissal.

In fact, this is confirmed by the results of the World Economic Forum. The Global Competitiveness Report 2019, in which, of the 141 countries analyzed worldwide, Peru is in position 134 in terms of job placement and employees’ dismissal.

In addition, during the employment relationship, Peruvian legislation has provided several benefits to which employees in private activity are entitled:

(i) Remuneration: Employees shall receive a minimum wage of S/ 930.00 (Nine Hundred and Thirty and 00/100 Soles) if rendering services for an ordinary working day, (not exceeding of eight daily hours or 48 monthly hours). Reduced working hours shall be proportionally paid.

(ii) Family allowance: Family allowance shall be paid to employees having children under 18 years old or until the age of 24 if they are studying at college or university. The employees are entitled to receive an amount equivalent to 10% of the minimum wage (currently S/ 93.00), irrespective of the number of children the employee has).

(iii) Compensation for length of services: The purpose of this benefit is to serve as coverage in case of termination of employment. It is equivalent to 9.72% of the monthly remuneration approximately. It shall be paid in May and November by the employer in a bank account in the name of the employee.

(iv) Legal bonuses in July and December: Employees are entitled to the payment of two bonuses during the year, each one equal to one monthly salary. The bonuses are paid one in July and one in December, proportionally to the full months worked during the period.

(v) Extraordinary bonuses: Employees are entitled to the payment of two extraordinary bonuses each year, payable on July and December, equivalent to 9% of the monthly salary.

(vi) Profit sharing: This benefit is mandatory for employers with twenty employees or more.

Employees have the right to receive a percentage of the annual income before taxes of the employer.

Depending on the economic activity of each employer the percentage to be distributed among the employees of a company varies between 5% and 10%. The annual amount to be received by each employee may not exceed 18 monthly remunerations.

(vii) Mandatory life insurance: A life insurance policy must be hired by the employer at its cost and expense in favor of all its employees.

Employees are also entitled to paid leave such as weekly rest, maternity leave, paternity leave, sick leave, and vacations. Regarding vacations, employees are entitled to 30 calendar days of paid vacations per year. Once a complete year of service is achieved, the employee must use his or her 30 days of vacations within the subsequent year of accruing the right.

Otherwise, if this does not occur, the employee will earn the right to an additional remuneration and a severance as a compensation for not having taken vacations on time, equal to a monthly remuneration for each one.

On the other hand, employers also have important obligations regarding safety and health at work. Indeed, employers have a legal prevention duty and therefore must devote all their efforts to preventing occupational accidents or diseases, complying with obligations such as training of employees, establishment of a committee on safety and health at work, and risk assessment, among others. Safety and Health at Work is a fundamental aspect for organizations in Peru.

Accordingly, an employee can only be dismissed if there is a cause established by law, related to his/her conduct or capacity, and duly proved. In addition, a formal procedure provided by law must be carried out. In that sense, if a dismissal without a proven cause is carried out, according to our labor case law, the employee could claim: (i) his/her reinstatement to his/her job position; or, (ii) the payment of the mandatory severance for arbitrary dismissal, at their sole discretion.

The authorities in charge of verifying that employers comply with their obligations are SUNAFIL (for its acronym in Spanish) and the judiciary. Indeed, SUNAFIL, through an inspection procedure verifies whether there was a breach and, if applicable, can impose a fine on the employer. Also, employees can pursue a claim to the judiciary to assert any right that has been violated. It is important to note that both are independent routes and it is not necessary to go to one before the other; however, it is usual for employees to request an inspection from SUNAFIL before going to court, since SUNAFIL’s final resolution could serve as a means of proof with important institutional support.

According to our migratory and labor regulations, in order for a foreigner to provide services in Peruvian territory, he or she requires a work visa issued by the migratory authority and an employment contract duly registered before the Ministry of Labor. For this, prior to the effective provision of services in Peru, an immigration procedure must be initiated before the immigration authority (either from Peru or from abroad). It is important to mention that there are certain countries with multilateral agreements with Peru (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador) and, therefore, there are particular rules for obtaining a work visa.

Finally, in Peru, unionization and the right to strike are constitutionally recognized rights. In this sense, labor unions activity has special protection and is increasingly active in Peru. Unions are representative, especially in sectors such as mining or the industrial sector, and increasingly, they are affiliated with federations that seek to act as interlocutors.


See more from Vinatea & Toyama at: www.vinateatoyama.com

Interview with: Kresna Panggabean and Benny Bernarto, TNB & Partners

Kresna Panggabean
Benny Bernarto

GC: What do you see as the main points that differentiate TNB & Partners from your competitors?

Kresna Panggabean (KP): We are one of the few international firms operating a disputes practice in Indonesia. Most international businesses know that Indonesian courts can be notoriously challenging to navigate and that the legal market for dispute resolution is dominated by local players. While we are happy to provide clients with a full service offering, we do not focus on matters in the local courts. Instead, we focus on cross-border corporate disputes where we can plug into the strength of the Norton Rose Fulbright network to add value.

Benny Bernarto (BB): Norton Rose Fulbright has been an established presence in Indonesia for nearly 30 years from its Australian connection and has, through various forms of associations and incorporations, acquired longstanding expertise in the Indonesian market. While the core strength of our practice in Indonesia has been handling corporate and banking and finance transactions, over the last three years we have been putting a lot of effort into building our dispute resolutions offering, working hard to increase the capacity of the firm to serve clients on a broader range of matters.

We (Kresna and I) are corporate lawyers by background, which helps a lot in understanding the nature of corporate disputes. In my experience, there are not many disputes lawyers in the Indonesian market who have a strong corporate background or understand complex, cross-border corporate transactions. We have knowledge of how international companies operate and can follow what our partners across Norton Rose Fulbright have seen in other jurisdictions and bring that expertise to bear on matters in Indonesia.

As a rule, clients want to work with the same firm or lawyers. If a dispute arises in connection with an M&A they want to stay with the same firm. Likewise, clients who deal with Norton Rose Fulbright offices outside Indonesia want to keep the same firm if they end up facing a dispute elsewhere. Because these clients are based outside Indonesia they are often unfamiliar with the very unique market dynamics

GC: What are some of the trends facing the dispute resolution landscape in Indonesia?

BB: Business is becoming more disputatious and client demand for dispute resolution services is increasing. This will certainly continue. As the global market becomes more sophisticated we will naturally see more disputes. Market sophistication leads to disagreement and dispute, new regulations lead to disputes, and cross-border trade is almost inevitably going to be followed by cross-border disputes.

KP: Indonesia is an incredibly disputatious market. In the last couple of years, we have received an increasing number of enquiries from clients facing disputes, so it is important for us to have a strong disputes offering. There are really two main sources of these disputes. We are seeing more disputes related to M&A or joint ventures, but we are also seeing an increase in things like anti-bribery and corruption investigations. That means disputes are evolving and a disputes lawyer can no longer focus only on the sorts of matters which end up in court. We have worked hard to help clients when things go wrong by specialising both in the fast-moving nature of cross-border investigations, which are typically being driven from the US, while also integrating our disputes offering more closely with the corporate practice.

GC: What are some of the issues international clients need to be aware of when it comes to facing a dispute with an Indonesian counterparty?

KP: My first advice would be to settle disputes before they go to court or arbitration wherever possible. Of course, this is not always possible, but it is certainly worth exploring any avenues that can lead one away from a dispute to reach a mutually agreeable solution.

Mediation and other forms of ADR are recognised here but are neither common nor effective, and it can be a challenge to get an Indonesian party to consider settling. However, we work closely with our clients to explore all options and examine the likely costs of each course of action.

BB: Most disputes are driven by business teams. The commercial view is that if you can’t get what you want you go to court and try to win. We like to remind them that in order to do that they will need to spend time and money. Clients understand that disputes are expensive, but they rarely appreciate how time consuming and expensive they can be.

There can be a tendency for business to see things like employment-related matters as “not real disputes”, but even these can become very expensive if they are not handled properly. There is a temptation to think, “it’s just an employee, let’s go to court”, but the costs and timelines can spiral unpredictably.

Similarly, we advise businesses to be proactive when it comes to investigations as the processes can be quite unpredictable. For example, we were instructed by an oil and gas contractor based in the US to conduct an investigation into suspected bribery involving several of its employees. We teamed up with our colleagues in Singapore to interview their staffs and establish a case for termination. However, we quickly discovered that the alleged practices were not confined only to those employees facing investigation but were in fact prevalent across most of the sales division. What started as a relatively contained FCPA compliance investigation became a systemic problem for the business involved.

KP: The next most important consideration is to determine whether you are going for litigation or arbitration. Our position is generally to push for arbitration, particularly when advising entities based outside Indonesia, as it is less complex and has a more certain timeframe. It is also safer – arbitral awards can be enforced in Indonesia while court judgements generally cannot be enforced.

In terms of selecting a seat we recommend that our clients based outside of Indonesia push to have their disputes settled at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) or Indonesia’s arbitration centre – Badan Arbitrase Nasional Indonesia (BANI). Both have a good list of arbitrators, including many who are internationally recognised, but it is often preferable for international businesses to seek a neutral jurisdiction.

In Conversation: Rupert Skellett, General Counsel, Beggars Group

GC: Tell us about your pathway into law?

Rupert Skellett (RS): I initially read English Literature at University and ended up working in book publishing for Penguin. But, I decided that wasn’t for me, and I felt that I needed some kind of “skill” that would make me employable: I was great at analysing and reading literature, but, not really much else. So, I completed a law degree at City University of London and then went to bar school and then a commercial set of chambers. When my pupillage finished, I didn’t fancy going to the bar, so I managed to get a job in Simkins, in their music department. I was there for a year or so.

Then, I went to work for a sole practitioner- James Rubenstein- who worked from his flat in West Hampstead, which was a bit weird, but it was great because it was very hands on sort-of- training: I’d sit about two yards away from him in his office. His clients included a few record labels, one of which was Domino, and another was Beggars. I ended up doing a lot of Beggars’ work. So when Martin Mills, the owner of Beggars, decided he wanted an in-house person, I’d already been doing the job for a couple of years and essentially, I was the natural choice. I will have been at Beggars for 20 years in January.

GC: Tell us about your work day, what items fall under the realm of legal at Beggars Group?

RS: Well for me, the priority of the work is to find new recording artists to sign. That is basically the goal, the one thing we all strive for. What we try and do is sign independent, alternative music and that’s generally UK or US based. Although, that is slightly changing in recent years. The idea is: that we don’t find acts which we think are going to sell loads and loads, instead we sign acts because we like them; we think they’re interesting; and we think that people should hear them. That’s the most exciting part because you go to see an act play live, and then hopefully you negotiate with them and sign them. So, that’s obviously a big part of the job: negotiating the terms of the deal and drafting the recording agreement. A lot of my work, apart from negotiation, is drafting in-house, probably more so than private practice. It’s a specialism, certainly for a music in-house role.

GC: What’s involved in the negotiation stage?

RS: You’ll often be in competition with a bunch of other labels, the artist’s lawyer will be representing the artist and then they will be representing various terms they have in other offers from other labels to you. Then, you have to decide whether you want to match them or not. There are things we can offer that other labels can’t: we very much pride ourselves on being a global company and that means we’re able to offer a really good deal to artists, because none of the revenue we receive goes through an inter-company royalty matrix—which other major labels operate. This is our distinct advantage.

We also sign far fewer acts than other major labels in order to really concentrate on each act. The way we’re set up is that we have our own people on the ground in every major record market in the world–who only work on our releases. We can bring a real focus to pushing, promoting and marketing our artists, much more so than other major labels. If you sign to a major label in the UK, you don’t really have much assurance, that you as an artist, are going to get any priority when your record is released in the US: you basically have to try and persuade your UK label to convince your US label to get behind you. Whereas, with us, it’s much more top-down. The company is run from New York and London, what we sign is prioritised throughout the world.

GC: You’ve been working for Beggars Group for around 20 years now, how has the music industry changed in those years?

RS:  The industry has changed massively in the last twenty years. For a long time, it was in the doldrums. For the first 15 years of this century, the global record industry kept on going down and down, to the point where it basically became half of what it was in the heyday years of the 90’s, with CD’s and the rest of it. The problem was piracy. Piracy was a huge problem which came with the internet. There were attempts in the early 2000’s to license various services and they didn’t really get off the ground. So, for a long time we were fighting piracy and tech companies who didn’t value rights in the same way that we do- so that was a real problem. But, since 2015, the global record industry started to grow again and that’s down to the streaming services—Spotify initially, then Apple Music and Deezer, for example.

GC: Tell me more about these streaming services, how have they changed the market?

RS: Spotify specifically– because it provides a free service and has basically removed any need for anyone to pirate any music. There’s no real excuse to pirate and it’s a lot more convenient. Still, there’s a certain amount of technological knowhow that you need to pirate music. However, things the music industry has been doing, in terms of blocking pirate sites, has helped. Trying to get search engine companies to cooperate with that, is quite tough. So, that’s what I was saying about trying to persuade tech companies to play nice with rights. That’s been a major challenge, but there are signs that is improving. But, it’s down to those efforts in the industry and also the availability of companies like Spotify, who have a great service—you basically have all of the world’s music at your fingertips, in a nice, easy way to find music.

GC: You mentioned piracy a past challenge to the music industry, what are the current challenges that you face today as a GC?

RS: What’s really interesting about today, is that when I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I was really into dance and house music. And, you couldn’t get it anywhere—it was really hard—there were a few record shops in London—a handful outside of London, there were barely any radio stations—and that was really exciting. But, now you have the exact polar opposite problem, you don’t have scarcity, you have too much content—so much content. Every day, hundreds of thousands of tracks are uploaded on Spotify.

GC: That must be quite difficult for you when you’re searching for talent, there’s so much content out there, where do you begin?

RS: This concerns going down the path of monitoring data. That’s obviously quite easy to do now, because there’s so much data out there and so many data collecting systems. Other record labels quickly initiate their flagging systems for anything that looks as if it’s doing quite well and they just sign whatever is on that data system. Whereas, we still definitely operate on the basis of seeing the artist play live, meeting them, getting a feel for their vision and obviously whether we love their music or not. So, the massive challenge is, even if you do sign the artist, how do you get that artist content above the tidal wave of other content that’s out there? That’s something that we’re really good at, because we are quite niche, and we have this global army of fans who promote an artist’s music. That is the real challenge now: the enormous amounts of content generated, which is down to cheaper recording processes and distribution. I mean, anyone can upload content, get a distribution partner and then have your music up on Spotify.

GC: Has social media had an impact on the growth of an artist?

RS: Social media is very important to an artist’s career now. But, you can experience a problem where you’re massive on social media but that doesn’t translate into consumption or sales of recorded music. So, you need to be careful that you tie them all together properly. There’s a lot of “well, why you can’t do this?” promotion, and it’s a constant battle between “promotion” and rights exploitation, and getting paid for rights exploitation. If you’re exploiting rights, you need to pay for them, because that’s our business and that’s what we thrive on.

GC: You spoke earlier of royalties and licenses. What’s the role that you play in the acquisition of a song?

RS: We have a publishing company, but we, the record company, handle the recordings—this is a separate copyright to the song itself. So, our music publishing company handles rights and acquires rights to songs. They sign song writers to exclusive song writing agreements. I’m involved in that side of things: the signing of song writers, in much of the same way as the record side; helping negotiate terms with the publishing company and then drafting the agreements. But, in terms of licensing songs, for instance, if someone were to use one of the songs in a TV program, or in a computer game, then we have a global licensing department who handles those things.

GC: You said that you work with alternative music, so you have a couple of clients from the UK grime scene, who have in the past, been faced with criminal allegations, how do you deal with that? What are the ramifications when clients face criminal proceedings?

RS: We’re as supportive as possible, where we can be. Mostly this is an issue for the manager and the artist lawyer, not us as the label.  But I do remember that with Giggs, when we were about to sign him in 2006, the Metropolitan Police phoned us up and told us not to sign him. But, we went ahead anyway, because, we thought it was wrong to deny him of the chance of generating a professional career as a recording artist. Yes, people might make mistakes, but you have to give them a chance to change, it didn’t make any sense for us to say: “you’re going to be punished for the rest of your life for something you did when you were younger.”

GC: If you could give yourself one piece of advice at the start of your career, after you qualified with your law degree, what would that be?

RS: Be careful what you wish for.

In Conversation: Dan Webster, Group General Counsel, Harrods

GC: Tell me about your pathway into law?

Dan Webster (DW): I studied law at the London School of Economics and went to law school in Chester. I got a training contract at what is now CMS Cameron McKenna. I qualified in litigation, stayed a couple of years at CMS and then then moved to SNR Dentons. I stayed there for a few years and then decided I wanted a change. To my surprise, an opportunity came up to be an in-house litigator at Harrods where the then owner was famously very litigious. Once at Harrods, I quickly realised that I was meant to be an in-house lawyer, and over time, I’ve evolved into a commercial, corporate, employment, IP all-rounder.

GC: Could you tell me a little about that change from private practice to in-house law? How did you find that transition?

DW: I was brought in initially as an in-house litigator. It quickly became apparent that there was a demand for more general in-house work and perhaps less than a full time job available for litigation work. So, I was very happy to broaden my skillset, I wasn’t someone who wanted to stay specialised. I was very happy to become more like a legal equivalent of a GP—if I can make a comparison to the medical profession. The fact that you can kind of turn your mind to most legal tasks, I found that very interesting, and I really enjoyed the variety. Therefore, I really embraced the opportunity to try and be an all-rounder within an in-house practice, as opposed to a specialist litigator.

GC: What does your role as an ‘all-rounder’ at Harrods entail?

DW: I oversee the legal function for the entire Harrods group. This includes commercial, corporate, IP, marketing and consumer work. I look after all the company secretarial work for the group too. I’m also data protection officer, which is probably quite unusual for a GC. I oversee all the GDPR related work. I’m also responsible for the trade mark and domain name portfolio.

GC: Tell me a little about your team and how they assist in the aforementioned work?

DW: I’ve got five lawyers, a contract manager and a paralegal (who we are currently recruiting). In addition to that, I’ve got responsibility for the data protection team, which is currently two professionals. I try to lead by example: by working hard and by having high standards. I tend not to micromanage and let talent flourish. I always seek to be approachable and supportive and to make work enjoyable for my team.

GC: What is a typical working day like for you?

I’m not sure that there is a typical working day, but this is one of the great things about being an in-house lawyer—it’s not repetitive and it’s unpredictable. You learn to expect the unexpected. You might come into work with a list of tasks you’d like to get done that day, but it’s highly unlikely that you’ll actually get through that list without the phone ringing repeatedly with queries and urgent tasks you’ve not anticipated. So, a lack of predictability is something which is a reality of being an in-house lawyer—but also one of the best things about being an in-house lawyer.

GC: How has your role as a GC changed throughout your time in the industry?

DW: I think the volume of work to be done has grown. There’s much more multitasking to do and perhaps a wider appreciation of the GC role and the legal function.

As I mentioned earlier, the legal department at Harrods absorbed the previous company secretary department and I’ve been appointed data protection officer. So, the GC role from my perspective, has become broader and more compliance focused. Even aside of my role as data protection officer, the legal work relating to data protection and data security has become a much bigger consideration during my period as a GC.

As I said, the Harrods business has grown, and so has the volume of legal work. There’s also been a shift towards keeping more of the work in-house and towards upskilling, rather than outsourcing. As a result, the legal team which I manage, has grown and all of us have had to become more versatile and more efficient.

I’ve noticed that during my period as a GC here, the legal department is increasingly seen as more of a general value-add, rather than just a legal function. We often take on more of a general role in the business projects we work on, rather than being limited simply to providing legal advice.

Being a GC is hard work and I don’t think it’s the easy option, when compared to private practice, if it ever was.

GC: Tell me about how you’re planning to use technology in your field?

DW: Another thing that’s sort of changed, is that we now have more of a focus on technology. Indeed, at Harrods, we’re currently trialling a contract management tool. It’s very early stages, but one of the contracts which we use repeatedly is a concession contract: we have many, many companies that operate concessions—effectively shop-in-shops— in Harrods, and it’s a complicated commercial arrangement. We have a fairly long concession contract. So, we are trialling technology which allows us to populate a precedent concession contract based on various different options, depending on the specific commercial deal you’ve struck on with a concession. The idea is that it will save us a lot of time and provide greater efficiency. But, as I’ve said, it’s quite a complicated agreement to do through a contract management tool. We are in the early stages, so it would be much too early to say whether it is a success or not.

GC: Could you tell me a little more about the work you do concerning trade marking?

DW: Well, Harrods has around 700 trademarks throughout the world. We need to protect our brand which obviously is very valuable. It’s one of the most famous brands out there and definitely one of the most famous retail brands in the world. The trademark acts as a deterrent to other organisations using our brand without our permission. It also means that if someone does try and use our brand without our permission, we’re able to enforce our trademark to stop this infringement.

GC: You spoke about your role within data protection, tell me about this?

DW: Companies the size of Harrods are required to appoint a data protection officer, and I took on that role for Harrods. I was appointed in the period before GDPR came into force. Therefore, I was involved in helping to manage the GDPR compliance project along with a data protection team. I am now responsible for the ongoing GDPR compliant operation of the Harrods organisation—assisted by the data protection team and plenty of other people within the Harrods organisation.

GC: Going off the back of that, is compliance a challenge for you and your team?

DW: I’ve talked about the company secretarial role and those challenges, but, we’ve got additional regulation in other areas as well. We have annual reporting obligations required by the Modern Slavery Act, and since 2019, we’ve got governance reporting obligations courtesy of the Companies (Miscellaneous Reporting) Regulations 2018. We’re also helping to prepare Harrods for the imminent introduction of IR35 which will impact on private companies who instruct consultants. As GC, I also attend the annual audit committee meeting and work closely with our internal audit and anti-money laundering team. Overall, there’s quite a lot of compliance work involved in my role, and that of the wider legal team.

GC: What are the current challenges you face at Harrods at the moment?

DW: The business never sleeps, so it’s genuinely a constant challenge—but, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The work-life balance can be an issue, but it focusses you to be efficient in the way that you work.

As well as business as usual, there’s always one or more major project to work on. At the moment, we’ve got a store-wide refurbishment project; we’ve been collaborating with Farfetch.com in relation to the new Harrods.com website; and we have two new business we are trialling away from the store: H Café and H Beauty.

Two years ago, one of the projects concerned divesting ourselves of four non-retail subsidiaries. All of these deals were being worked on simultaneously and in fact all of them completed around Christmas 2017, which was a memorable juggling act.

GC: What is in the pipeline for Harrods?

DW: We’re nearing the last stages of the store refurbishment project, we’ve recently reopened our food halls and a state of the art new beauty room. We’re revamping our chocolate room very shortly. We’re re-platforming the Harrods.com website which will be launching early this year. We’re trialling an H Café concept in Henley, which is both a café and a click-and-collect location, with changing rooms upstairs. We’ll be opening two H Beauty shops this year, this is a very exciting new beauty concept and effectively a new brand which we’re building from scratch.

GC: What have been the high points whilst working at Harrods?

DW: I’ve been very luck to work here during a period of rapid change, which has bought Harrods success and growth. Throughout this period there’s been drive, ambition and innovation. I’ve been very fortunate to be in the organisation at this time. Some recent highlights include the projects I’ve mentioned earlier. But another high point is my current team—I’m very lucky to have such talented and dedicated colleagues.

GC: If you could go back in time, when you were starting off your career in law, what would you tell yourself?

DW: I’d say try and get an in-house secondment as a trainee or junior solicitor. This will give you an early insight into both sides of the legal profession: private practice and in-house. This will help you plot your career path and give you a valuable insight into how businesses really work.

In Conversation: Alex Scudamore, head of legal, Wimbledon – The All England Lawn Tennis Club (Championships) Limited

GC: Could you tell us about your pathway into law?

Alex Scudamore (AS): I read French and German at Bristol University, and then completed the law conversion course. Prior to starting that, I took the usual route of looking at different options in terms of what I might want to do. I ended up completing a vacation scheme at Macfarlanes LLP. Off the back of that, I was offered a training contract. I then completed the law conversion course and LPC. It was after this that my training and career at Macfarlanes started.

GC: How did you move in-house?

AS: I was in the commercial team at Macfarlanes. The department was broad in terms of the areas of law covered – anything from commercial contractual work, to IP, to brand protection and data protection. I was therefore geared up in a very commercial way. I was then sent on a secondment, initially to a card payment processing company – an industry I was not particularly familiar with. It started off as a three-month secondment, but ended up being nine months in total. It was semi-virtual, with half the time spent in their offices out in Cambridgeshire, and the other half of the time spent back at Macfarlanes. So my first taste of in-house life came when I was a year-and-a-half qualified. I then went back to Macfarlanes’ commercial department to carry on there. It was after this that an additional secondment opportunity came up at CSM, a sports marketing company. I enjoyed the opportunity so much that I ended up never going back to Macfarlanes. I ended up remaining at CSM for four and a half years.

GC: How did you come to be head of legal at the AELTC?

AS: I was very happy working in the sports marketing company. But, for me, the appeal of the AELTC was working for a rights holder, as a lawyer. When working for an agency, you’re unable to give external legal advice to your sporting clients – whether that be brands or players, you’re always at a slight distance. I was starting to think about my next move and the appeal of Wimbledon was obvious – it’s such a strong property, it’s such a strong brand, it’s established in the sporting world, and therefore an opportunity that I just couldn’t turn away.

I began as head of legal at the AELTC in September 2018. Before me, the AELTC never had a full-time in-house resource and instead used a combination of retained legal resource (via Kerman and Co.,) and other external firms. But the time was finally right to have that full-time, day-to-day legal resource, so I was brought in as the only full-time lawyer, as head of legal.

GC: What’s a typical working day for you?

AS: I would say no day is the same and the work is extremely broad. I mean, I certainly haven’t been bored since I’ve started working here, there’s been a steady workflow. There will usually be several major contracts on the go at any one time. These could be anything from a renewal with one of our key official suppliers, to queries that arise from broadcast arrangements, IP protection, ticketing issues and data protection. Recently, I’ve been doing a great deal of work on the grass court season that the AELTC has been investing in.

GC: Tell me about Wimbledon’s grass court strategy?

AS: We have invested in developing our grass court strategy. The aim of this is ultimately to provide world-class opportunities for junior players to compete on—and thrive on—grass, at all stages of their development. We’ve obviously got a Grand Slam event here, but there are many tournaments in Europe which form part of the women’s and men’s professional tours. These are very important, as we want to give players the best opportunity to play on grass. In that three-week gap between Roland-Garros, which is played on clay, and Wimbledon, which is played on grass, we have created a grass court series for the world’s top 150 players. We’ve announced a series of strategic investments to strengthen this season. We have also acquired sanctions to stage those tournaments. But, whether it’s been by way of acquiring sanctions or obtaining rights, in relation to the staging of the tournaments, we’re working with tournament delivery partners in the various territories to deliver these events.

GC: What’s legal’s role within the formation of contracts with your sponsors?

AS: If it’s a new official supplier (sponsor) deal, you will be brought into some of the earlier discussions, so around the heads of terms that might be agreed. You’re also brought in materially a little later on. We’re responsible for putting together our ‘official supplier’ agreement. We now have a standard form agreement that we will populate, often followed by some degree of negotiation. The agreement takes the form of your main body of legal terms and a schedule of rights setting out the rights that our official suppliers are getting. This is a standard structure in rights deals.

If you have a renewal of an existing agreement, then there may be certain items that would have been renegotiated commercially, so it would be our responsibility to work with the commercial team to negotiate these agreements.

Earlier on this year, we entered into a new partnership with OPPO – the Chinese mobile phone company. We haven’t worked with a Chinese partner before in the context of an official supplier arrangement, so this was an exciting new deal which also covers an entire new product category.

GC: How have you developed your skills during your time in the industry?

AS: As a lawyer, this is something that happens naturally – I have become much more strategic in a way which enables me to advise in a more commercial way. Having that ability to step away from the pure legal and really understand – to get under the skin of the business – greatly helps. Of course, you still must be that academic lawyer in many senses but I think, certainly in-house, you have a need to be both commercial and practical. You don’t want to be seen as the deal prohibitor in the organisation, you must be the enabler.

GC: Would you say that being a ‘business enabler’ is an advantage of working in-house?

AS: Yes, 100%. When you’re in private practice in a law firm, you have a variety of clients and, to a certain extent, you’re at an arm’s length from their day-to-day business. But, coming in-house, your ultimate main client is the business itself. You are there to protect – and have a credible working understanding of how the business works – whether that be financially or strategically. You also must be able to juggle the various different stakeholders within the business: from your senior board members – the executive board and here, at the AELTC, the committees, made up of members of the All England Club. You must balance those stakeholders within the business, but you must also be able to work with everybody – this includes those involved in the ‘on the ground’ delivery of The Championships. Though, for me, it’s the variety. There’s an awful lot that goes on to ultimately stage one of the best – well, we think The best – Grand Slam event in the world. As head of legal, you have a key role in making sure that you are doing everything in your power to protect the business.

GC: What sorts of challenges are you facing, or have you faced, working at Wimbledon?

AS: I think it’s getting to grips with the business – and that naturally does take time. You may have to deal with legal issues which you haven’t necessarily come against or had much exposure to before. Certainly for me at the AELTC, the area of broadcast has been a new area for me – from a pure commercial understanding, but also legally – so we’ve been working with external parties on that. It’s getting to grips with new areas – you definitely have to learn on the job. It’s not a case of looking things up in a book: reading a case isn’t necessarily going to help you, you’ve got to develop practical learning.

In my role, I would also say that it’s probably been juggling the number of different matters that require my attention legally. You also have to develop a deep understanding of broader issues in the tennis context, from a wider, global perspective. You need to grasp how the various other tennis organisations (like the professional tours for men and women, the WTA and ATP, for example) function and interact. This is very important for us as a Grand Slam event, so for me, the biggest challenge has been understanding how everything ultimately fits together.

I think as an organisation our biggest challenges are compliance related. We are delivering a major sporting event, with hundreds of thousands of people who visit the grounds, so one of our biggest challenges is security. Fortunately, we have great internal and external teams who focus on that. I think for me, it’s also certainly GDPR and data protection. We need to make sure that this continues to remain at the forefront of our focus as an organisation.

Also, there was an independent review into the sport of tennis from an integrity perspective. Since the Tennis Integrity Unit has been established, the AELTC has been actively involved in this to make sure we are upholding the highest levels of integrity in our Grand Slam event and, indeed, these new tournaments that we are now involved in.

GC: What have you enjoyed most during your time at the AELTC so far?

AS: The AELTC is growing at such a pace and we can’t afford to be complacent. We’ve acquired the Wimbledon Park Golf Club that is situated across Church Road from us – that ultimate expansion is very exciting. Further expanding our investment into the grass court tennis season has been a new thing for the AELTC – it’s been a new experience for me too. I’ve had to develop an understanding of how the ATP and WTA sanctions to stage tournaments work. Aside from some of the highlights mentioned, for me, it’s the ability to work with a range of people, and the exposure that I’ve been given within the organisation has been great. It’s pretty interesting for a lawyer here – you’re not kept siloed in your little box in an office tucked away, you are out there speaking to people. I’d like to think that I’ve become, or I am becoming, that trusted adviser within the organisation, which is what any in-house lawyer should strive to be.

GC: You mentioned the rights to stage such tournaments. Could you tell me a little more about these?

AS: It’s about making sure that the agreements we’ve got to stage these grass court events are robust enough to allow us to do what we want to do. We’ve had to juggle quite a few different parties – because on one hand, you must make sure that you’re acting in accordance with ATP or WTA rules (which govern how these tournaments must operate). Then, on the other hand, you’ve also got to manage the relationship with the entities that are delivering these tournaments on the ground. So, there has been some back-to-backing in these agreements: making sure that we’re not giving third-party rights in relation to the tournament, which we ourselves do not have. That has been quite important from a legal perspective because there’s a real balancing act around those protections.

GC: What’s in the pipeline for the AELTC?

AS: We’re continuing to invest in The Championships, which is the pinnacle of the sport of tennis. The investment in the grass court tennis season instils the love of the game in people and, ultimately, the ambition to play at Wimbledon at a young age. We also have the acquisition of the Wimbledon Park Golf Club – that was a very important moment for us in terms of our master plan for the future. We’re investing in our environmental sustainability too. Continually trying to improve and never becoming complacent is key for us.

GC: How important was mentorship for you, as you developed within your own legal career?

AS: I think it’s important to have a mentor, especially from an in-house perspective. This need not necessarily be a lawyer, but someone you can learn from in a career development perspective – someone who’s got experience of working in different organisations. Personally I don’t particularly like these female forums, because I think it actually highlights barriers which shouldn’t exist – and don’t exist sometimes.

Speaking honestly, I don’t think there are any barriers that exist for women getting into the in-house legal profession. I certainly haven’t encountered them. I think you get roles, in my experience, based on merit – and that’s the way it should be. I think one thing that I would say is that you do need to have an added confidence – I mean, certainly being in the sport sector, it has traditionally been a male-dominated industry. I think that you need to have the confidence to speak – if you’re in a boardroom with senior executives who are all men, you shouldn’t be put off by that, but certainly I haven’t seen any barriers from my side.

I think mentorship is a good thing. I think if you’re in a law firm, there is an obvious hierarchy, and naturally it is important to talk to those people who are further on in their careers about how they got there. I think this somewhat slightly changes in the in-house world. It’s helpful to have a network of other in-house lawyers to openly talk to about the challenges that you might be facing and how you go about progression – because the in-house career path is not as obvious as private practice, so to speak. I’m a lawyer for a rights holder; it is important to have a network of other lawyers in a similar position, because there’s naturally learning that you can take from other sporting rights holders.

GC: If you could go back to the start of your law career and give yourself some advice, what would that be?

AS: Stick at it. When you’re in private practice, the hours can be long (the hours are still long sometimes). I think that it can be a bit of a shock, initially. When I finished law school, I was in a corporate firm, doing pretty long hours. But, stick at it. Enjoy the learning.

I would also say have a think and take a step back when it comes to deciding what particular area of law you want to go in to. Don’t qualify into a particular department because of the people alone (although it naturally helps) – it needs to be an area that you’re truly interested in. Fortunately for me, it has been an area that I was interested in. But I’m not sure if I necessarily appreciated that back when I was choosing where I wanted to qualify. I knew I enjoyed being a commercial lawyer. But I don’t think that I appreciated how important that decision was at the time and how it would shape my career. Being a commercial lawyer has been absolutely brilliant because I’ve had the flexibility of starting off in private practice and then being able to go in-house, which has hugely suited me.

In Conversation: Ria Sanz, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Compliance and Company Secretary, AngloGold Ashanti

GC: Could you tell me about your current role, and your journey to where you are now?

Ria Sanz (RS): I’m currently Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Compliance and Company Secretary for AngloGold Ashanti (AGA).  I’ve been at the company for almost nine years, but I’ve served as general counsel of publicly listed companies for 21 years, in range of industries including industrial gases, private healthcare, paper /pulp/chemical cellulose and more.

As head of sustainability at Sappi, a paper company, I became closely familiar with the importance of responsible and ethical business practices across a number of contexts. This role helped with my transition into the mining sector, given the diverse and extensive group of stakeholders in the industry.

I have a great legal team at AngloGold Ashanti. We work as a team to support the objectives of the business through close collaboration and involvement with our colleagues. We’ve built up a strong compliance function and programme which was implemented over the last five or six years. As a result, we’ve been successful in avoiding any significant compliance issues. This is important since we deal with governments at all levels, from presidents to mayors and other local government officials. It is critical to ensure that our people have a strong understanding of what is legally unacceptable behaviour. We are guided by our values and believe that, in order to maintain our social license to mine, we need to be a good corporate citizen and partner in the jurisdictions in which we operate.

GC: You’re on the Executive Committee and you occupy a very senior role within the business. Worldwide, that seems quite rare for legal personnel, although it’s becoming more common. Was that always the case since you joined, and is that a symptom of the industry you’re in or is that just the culture within the company?

RS: When I joined I was, I believe, the first group general counsel and member of the executive committee that reported directly to the CEO. As the general counsel, I believe you need a seat at the table so that you are well-informed, otherwise you are going to be fighting with one arm behind your back. We operate in complex environments with risks around litigation, class actions, disclosure and instances where just saying something without a comprehensive understanding could have significant legal implications. So yes, I would hope that it’s increasingly understood that the general counsel does need to be a member of the executive.

GC: When you took over the role, was there a period of adjustment and defining boundaries and relationships?

RS: Definitely, it’s normal for it to take time to get the right team in place, put in the work to ensure that the key legal matters are understood and establish one’s role and voice at the table. I’ve also been very lucky that I’ve had good support from the CEOs and members of the executive team.

GC: As far as the role itself goes, since it was a new role, were you able to define the role profile more than you would have otherwise?

RS: That’s one of the advantages when there isn’t a history of the role in place. Senior roles are, to a certain extent, also driven by personalities. People’s strengths differ, even in the same role, and businesses evolve, so I think it’s natural for roles and responsibilities to change over time.

Industries have changed significantly, too. For example, when I was with Sappi and I was asked to head up sustainability in 2007, it was not something that either shareholders or other stakeholders had such an interest in as they do now.

I believe that strong legal people need to be able to adapt in order to contribute towards the strategic objectives of the business.

GC: I imagine that influences the kind of people you hire to report to you directly. In South Africa, is there a good pool of in-house lawyers that can fulfil that role or is it a struggle to find the talent?

RS: Mining is a well-established industry in South Africa, so there is a good pool of talented people. We are also a global organisation and, as such, would look across the globe for talent.

I think more and more people find mining to be an interesting and dynamic field of work. I think younger people want to work for companies that have souls and an opportunity to make a difference.

GC: Speaking broadly about the mining sector, you touched on the fact that you have all of the issues and stakeholders that other industries have, and more. Was there an adjustment period?

RS: Yes, there was. This role has been by far the most challenging and interesting. You eat, drink and breathe the industry,  the company, and the role. It’s a 24/7 industry and, as such, requires a lot of dedication.

I think all of my experiences through the years placed me in quite a good position to take on this role. It was overwhelming to start with, but I had a great team of people that had been in the organisation for some time in addition to having a supportive CEO and executive team. A lot of these people are still in the organisation and I was fortunate to be welcomed and helped – so that made the transition easier.

GC: What do you think is the biggest challenge specific to the mining industry that the legal team faces?

RS: I think it’s the challenge of keeping up with a rapidly changing regulatory environment – and quickly having to understanding the impact that those changes will have on the business in the short, medium and long term.

GC: Is it difficult to keep your finger on the  pulse in many different regions?

RS: I think that mining has significant commonality across jurisdictions. The fact that governments expect a return on the resources is something that is common, communities look to us for employment and for CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) projects. The themes are very much aligned. It’s the implementation that can change from one jurisdiction to another – how you participate with communities; which projects would be most impactful; and how these initiatives are implemented. It is important to understand the jurisdiction and proactively manage the expectations of governments and other stakeholders.

GC: Do you have a team in every jurisdiction, or in some of them are you relying on external advisers locally?

RS: We have legal representation in each of the countries where we operate. The complement is determined by the needs and complexity of the country and the operation, and the types of interactions they are likely to have, i.e. some might interact more with the local regulators, while others with the national government officials together with the corporate team as well.

GC: In terms of the legal systems you’re operating in, I imagine there’s a spectrum, from very well-defined legal systems and regulations to jurisdiction where things aren’t quite as formal, or even stable. How do you grapple with that?

RS: I wouldn’t say that’s exactly true anymore, certainly not in the jurisdictions where we are. Large-scale mining and gold mining are at different stages in different countries. But many of the jurisdictions have had mining activities – whether it’s gold or another resource – for an extended period. More and more governments have well-resourced and experienced people that understand mining. This helps tremendously in our engagements with governments.

GC: Is it easy to keep policies consistent across the board in every jurisdiction that you’re operating in?

RS: If I’m looking at the compliance side – because we are also listed on the New York Stock Exchange and in Australia and Ghana, not just in South Africa –the need to make sure  we’re not in breach of any bribery, corruption or ethical issues, means we do apply policies across the group. It is key that those policies are developed in conversation with individuals in the group. This enables the practical application of the key principles and allows for operating consistency in a number of areas.

GC: I suppose that links to what you were saying before about the business having core values?

RS: That’s right. And also, the reality is that anything that happens in Ghana will impact on how people see you in Colombia. The importance of having a consistent set of operating values, no matter where we are and even if it is to a much higher standard than the local regulation dictates, is key.

GC: Do you set the vision for the legal team on a yearly basis or a multi-year basis? I imagine that the business environment changes quite quickly?

RS: We’ve recently had a re-look at our operation model across the organisation and have made some changes to our team’s structure. I believe this is something that needs to be revised periodically and requires regular attention, even if no changes are made.

GC: Looking ahead to the next five or even ten years, is there anything that you see coming round the corner that may impact the work that you do?

RS: I think there are going to be increased risks caused by external factors. There’s climate change – with increased rainfall,   higher temperatures and rapid population growth: we have to contemplate the impact this might have to our equipment and operating environment. Mining often has a large footprint, so are we going to need to be in dialogue with farmers and other industries for both access and ensuring the preservation of land and the environment.

Technology changes will be another area that I think will continue to gather momentum. We will need to consider the impacts to mining and our production, costs and employment model.

GC: I imagine that you have to keep an eye on the political situation globally, which obviously now is changing a lot?

RS: The political landscape is something we already look at carefully. We often need to make significant capital investment decisions with long-dated returns on capital that need to survive potential changes in the operating landscape.  For example, if a project has a six year payback period and every four years there is a presidential election that tends to come with significant changes in that jurisdiction, we have to consider the risk factors in making a decision on that project.

There are jurisdictions in which we operate now that I didn’t visit in my first five or six years at AngloGold Ashanti because they were politically stable. However, the second there’s change on the political front I visit.

GC: Is there any way that you can safe guard against that?

RS: I think, like always, you’ve got to look at the returns through a lens that considers risk and reward, like in any business. As a management team, it is our job to manage the risks to the best of our ability. We do our part to safeguard the business and its investors from this risk by maintaining a pulse on the political landscape, along with working to mitigate social, environmental and other risks through our approach. Our compliance and oversight measures help to ensure that this work is done.

GC: Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?

RS: I was talking yesterday with a colleague in another mining company, and she referred to mining being an old boys club. It’s still an old boys club and women still need to be better represented. Diversity in every sense is something that we, as an organisation, see as very important. Not only when it comes to our recruitment practices, but also in the law firms that we use. Encouraging our external advisers to also strive for diversity is, I think, another way we can push for change. That is one aspect we need to continue to work on.

GC: Have you found that law firms are increasingly using diversity as a selling point to you?

RS: It is one of the points that comes across in conversations with the law firms, particularly the topic of fair pay. Law firms, though, are realising that salary parity is something their clients find important. Hopefully they see it as the right thing to do and a key business imperative. It is something that I think we, as their clients, are well placed to influence.

 GC: Is it hard for you to assess how effective the law firms are in their diversity and inclusion pushes?

RS: It’s good to understand what programmes firms have in place. I think more and more of them do have initiatives and are progressing in the areas of inclusion and diversity.

But I do find myself also becoming more vocal. Where I see no diversity I’m now having conversations with senior partners and even driving the makeup of teams that work with us. I can have an impact through doing that. It’s also my responsibility to do it. I would expect my stakeholders to be impressing on me to have diversity in my team as well.

In Conversation: Othelia Langner, head of legal and compliance (Southern Africa and SSA), Medtronic

Othelia Langner is speaking in her personal capacity, and not on behalf of Medtronic.

GC: Can you tell me about your current role and your career journey leading to it?

Othelia Langner (OL): I’m currently responsible for legal and compliance for the Southern African and Sub-Saharan regions.

I followed the ‘standard’ route to qualify as an attorney in South Africa, and then I had the opportunity to join Simmons & Simmons in London. During my time there, I went on secondment to UBS and Renaissance Capital in Moscow, and that is what initially sparked the interest in an in-house environment. My boss in Moscow took up a position as general counsel at a private equity holding company in Almaty in Kazakhstan and he asked me to join him, so I spent some time working there, and I really enjoyed it – it was very, very interesting.

When I was considering my next career move, I was offered the opportunity to come back to South Africa and join the South African office of Fasken, which worked out well because at the time I felt I was just a little bit too junior to go in-house full time. And so I went back into private practice, doing a lot of corporate commercial work in the mining space in South Africa and the rest of the African region, with a little bit in Central Asia.

I spent the next six years or so with Fasken, went through the ranks and made partner. And then Medtronic’s legal counsel resigned and they needed someone on very short notice. I’d just come back from maternity leave and it just aligned. I initially joined on secondment and then never left.

GC: Do you ever miss private practice?

OL: No. I love being in-house. It’s a completely different way of practising law, but – depending on the day! – I love the diversity, the intensity of it. I know in-house lawyers always say this, but you really get to know the business. You don’t practice law in isolation. Actually, the ‘business’ part of it is probably 70% and the strictly legal part maybe 20%. I don’t know what the other 10% is – human nature most likely!

Certainly at Medtronic, it’s a very collegial atmosphere, and I get to  do very interesting work so no, I can’t imagine going back to private practice.

GC: It’s interesting that you dipped your toe into in-house at first, then went back to private practice, and then back in-house.

OL: I was relatively junior (four years PQE) when I was exposed the in-house world. And, actually, it really helped going back into private practice having been in-house. I think all lawyers should ideally do a stint in-house for six months or a year.

GC: In-house skills are never really emphasised throughout law school. Do you think that it takes a certain kind of person to successfully transition in-house, or do you think everyone has it in them, it’s just a case of the right experiences?

OL: Whilst I think all lawyers can benefit from an in-house experience, some personality types may be more suited than others to working in-house. You have lawyers that are very particular about doing things in a very particular way – they want to really interrogate issues – whereas often in the in-house environment you have to make the best decision you can with the information you’ve got, often very quickly in high-pressure situations. You really have to be quite comfortable with assuming responsibility and perhaps (but hopefully not!) making the wrong call. I think the expectation of lawyers in private practice is that they don’t get the luxury of getting it wrong, because they are paid for their time to get it right. And some people are more or less comfortable with that kind of uncertainty and responsibility. I definitely think you can train for it, or at the very least, you can become more comfortable with it.

GC: You mentioned you felt you were perhaps too junior when the opportunity first presented itself to go in-house. When you did join Medtronic, did you feel confident that you were ready, or was there an adjustment period? What was that like?

OL: When I joined Medtronic, I was comfortable that I had the necessary technical skill, but also the gravitas and confidence to really engage with people at a management level.

You really are expected to be a business partner and to advise the business on bringing ideas to fruition and a key component of this is to appropriately manage risk. And when talking about risk, one has to bear in mind that risk can be much broader than, for example, the legal and financial risk that might result from an indemnity clause. It can encompass business risk, reputational risk and the risk of a loss of an opportunity. It would be amazing if you could do everything without any risk but that is not not a reality. And to determine which risks are acceptable, tolerable, given what you’re trying to achieve – I think from that point of view I was very much ready. But it was still a very big adjustment. To go from being able to take the time to really interrogate things to the level of detail you are comfortable with in private practice, to being comfortable with moving quickly – but not negligently or without due consideration – it’s a different dynamic.

GC: You inherited the department at quite short notice. Was it the exact same role to that of your predecessor?

OL: The department existed, and I think we all bring our own approaches to things so we have certainly evolved (not least because of the increasing complexity of the legal and regulatory landscape).

GC: Has the team, or the structure of the team, changed since then?

OL: I wouldn’t say the structure of the team has changed, but I think what we’ve really had to focus on is: with increased demand, how do we deploy the resources we’ve got to effectively address the needs of the business?

In private practice, you’re a revenue generator, whilst in-house you are a cost centre and so, as the business grows, there is often increased pressure on the department but not necessarily additional resources available. Which means you’ve got to look at how you work with those resources.

GC: I imagine that would be a real opportunity for you to develop the management skills that might be a bit less of a focus in private practice, by learning on the job.

OL: I think in private practice, it’s a very different dynamic. It’s much more hierarchical – you’ve got your junior candidate attorneys, your junior and senior, so you manage through the hierarchy. In-house, you’ve got to manage your team, but everyone is kind of semi-autonomous. Stakeholder management is probably the bigger challenge in-house, because you’ve got your team, your local and regional business teams, the regulatory team, the finance team, the quality team, the list goes on, and in a matrix organisation it is important that the right people are kept in the loop.

GC: On the subject of internal stakeholders, is that an ongoing piece of work for you – managing the profile, not just of yourself but also the team as a whole within the business?

OL: Medtronic’s vision includes being recognised as a company of dedication, honesty, integrity, and service, so the legal and compliance function is very highly valued and there’s quite a high degree of visibility and respect. I’ve never found that I’ve had to struggle to be heard because I’ve been able to build close relationships with the businesses I support.

GC: Do you think that’s reflective of the industry, or do you think that comes down to culture of the management of the board?

OL: It is a tough one to answer. I think in highly regulated industries, the importance of legal counsel and compliance counsel is easy to see, because you need someone who can help you navigate that. You can do that with external counsel, but that also involves someone in the business taking responsibility for that process and I think it makes a lot of sense to have that skillset in-house.

So depending on what your business need or goal is, the legal counsel function may play different roles: is it principally to keep you out of trouble? Is it principally to manage contracts? To execute the deals? In my position, it’s a far broader range of risks that we need to consider and manage and so we really are asked to be partners to the business.

GC: Would you say that regulation is the most challenging part of your job?

OL: A criticism that is sometimes levelled at lawmakers is that there may not always be the level of certainty or clarity that industry would want, and so it’s really about trying to navigate that. One way of managing this is to try to understand what the intent is; what the regulators are trying to achieve, and then you try and align with what you consider to be substantial compliance with this intent (rather than looking for loopholes). It can be challenging, but it’s not insurmountable.

GC: Is it difficult to communicate to the internal stakeholders the fact that you can’t give certainties?

OL: I think the thing when communicating with stakeholders is you’ve just got to be clear about the risks that they may be assuming. So you have to form a view. They want to know: can we do this? Should we do this? You can say: ‘Well, having looked at this, this and this, there is a risk that someone can make this argument. If they did make the argument, this is what would happen. We think that this is likely or not likely to happen. Are you comfortable doing this if that could happen? If yes, then that’s a risk we are prepared to assume, so how do we mitigate that? Is there anything else we can do to stop that happening?’

The business may not always have the expertise or the legal knowledge to be able to consider all the possible different structures, so that’s where you really partner with them to understand where they want to get to and how best to achieve it in a legal and compliant manner.

GC: Obviously the industry is highly regulated, but does it change often – are you grappling with new pieces of regulation?

OL: I’d say in the last three years we’ve probably had the biggest changes to the medical device regulations in the history of the industry, not least the amendments to the Medicines Act, which created quite a lot of uncertainty in terms of how they should be interpreted and applied. And when we were afforded the opportunity to provide comments, we made sure we did.

GC: To the regulators?

OL: Yes. For two of the most challenging provisions, operation has been suspended, initially for a year and now for a further three years, while they work through the comments and prepare new drafts.

GC: Would you say that the relationship between companies like yours and the regulators is a positive one – do they take comments like yours on board?

OL: I believe in the value of constructive relationships so it is important to me that when engaging with regulators this is done in a productive way. When it comes to issues that impact the industry as a whole, SAMED also plays a valuable role in escalating matters to the regulator.

GC: As technology advances, I imagine the nature of the products your company is supplying can change quite drastically, and might suddenly involve aspects of, for example, data privacy and cybersecurity, that might not previously have been issues. Do you find the nature of your concerns or priorities shifts as the work that comes across your desk changes?

OL: Indeed, technological advances mean that we need to stay on top of an ever evolving legal landscape too and I have definitely seen an increased focus on matters relating to data privacy and security. So I have had to develop my understanding of these areas, because whilst you can certainly rely on expert advice, you need to know how to work with it on a day-to-day basis.

GC: It seems like it would be difficult, in this industry, to split up the business into jurisdictions based on geography, because of the differences between regulators and what’s allowed in certain countries. Is that the case?

OL: When grouping geographical regions there are usually certain similarities in terms of market dynamics. However, when it comes to specifics on a country level, that’s usually something that would need to be considered on a country-by-country basis. When you are responsible for multiple countries, depending on the nature of the query, you can’t make assumptions that because something is a certain way in one jurisdiction, it is going to be the same in another. You have to ask a lot of questions, and the support and guidance of external counsel in the relevant jurisdictions is key.

GC: Compared to Europe, where there are many countries that are fairly similar, here you have countries right next door to each other that are vastly, vastly different.

OL: And that’s when that comfort with a degree of uncertainty is really important, because in developing markets there may be a disconnect between what the law says and how it is applied on the ground and you need to be able to find a way to work with those dynamics.

GC: Do you ever look at other industries that interest you?

OL: I get to work on really interesting, really complex, really high-level, challenging transactions and, added to that, I get to work for an organisation whose mission – “to alleviate pain, restore health and extend life” – truly resonates with me, so that will be hard to beat!

GC: It must have that added level of satisfaction and motivation.

OL: Our mission was written by our founder, Earl Bakken, and all these years later, we still have the same mission; it still informs how we do business (and I actually have it on the wall in my office). I’m really proud that in my small way I get to contribute to making a difference to patients’ lives. I’m very lucky.

GC: Just lastly, is there anything that you see coming in the next five years, be it specific to your industry, or your job, that you think will affect your role going forward?

OL: I think in-house legal counsel play a very important role in the business. I don’t see that falling away, but I do think that it is going to change, as it already has changed. Where the most complex legal matters used to go to external counsel, I think the breadth and depth of in-house skills and in-house capabilities will continue to be developed and enhanced, so you will really have in-house specialists. If I look at our organisation, the expertise and the quality of our in-house legal and compliance teams is just tremendous.

So yes, I believe that there’s going to be more and more emphasis on in-house legal being an integrated partner to the business and having a high level of technical expertise in-house. And with a lot of organisations facing huge pressures on driving down costs, I think there’s going to be a huge focus on making sure you get the right kind of candidate in the role so that they can execute effectively across a whole range of needs.

When it comes to technology, I’m interested to see how reliance on AI will evolve. At the moment, it would seem like more of a  possible concern to those in private practice, where there’s a lot more of the commoditised work. But, honestly, in the in-house environment, no two days are the same – so it will be a long time before AI can catch up.

That said, when it comes to adopting new technologies in the in-house environment, this too will continue to advance and will require us to constantly consider how we are doing what we do and whether there are tools that can enhance the value we provide. I believe that if we remember to regularly reflect on where we are and to challenge assumptions about how we have worked in the past, then I think we can, and will, evolve.

María Gabriela Alvarez de la Fuente

I began my career as a legal assistant at court while I was still studying law at Buenos Aires University. After graduating law school, I spent three years in private practice before moving to BASF Argentina S.A. as an in-house corporate lawyer. In 2003, I had seen a job advertised at BASF and I found it really interesting. While I had really enjoyed my experience working in private practice, I wanted to feel part of a company. I applied for the role, and thankfully was successful! The switch from private practice to an in-house role was not a difficult one for me, and I found that I really enjoyed working with people from across the different departments, getting to know what the business was about, and contributing to its success. Since then, my experience has been solely as an in-house lawyer. I spent 12 years at BASF, during which time I received several promotions, and then followed that with a shorter stint at adidas as their director of legal and compliance (Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay). I then joined Colgate-Palmolive in May 2016 as its regional legal director, Southern Cone. Colgate-Palmolive, the US worldwide consumer products company, focuses on the production and distribution of household, healthcare, and personal care products and operates in Argentina through its subsidiary Colgate-Palmolive Argentina.

In my current role, I have simplified several processes within the legal department, and have also worked hard to bring the legal team closer to the rest of the company – and the rest of the company closer to the legal team. I encourage colleagues from other departments to feel free to contact our legal team early, believing they will receive good advice from us, not just as lawyers, but as business partners. I believe that my attitude of openness and transparency has definitely proved successful. In the past three years, I have built up a rich portfolio by supporting projects that involved the launch of new products and technologies, facing challenges from competitors regarding product claims, as well as handling various business restructuring and litigation cases that are still ongoing. At the heart of everything I do, I aim to show that lawyers are not just a cost centre, but are creating value for the businesses in which they operate. I lead my team by example, and concentrate on providing commercially astute and solution-focused advice that enables the business to be successful in the marketplace while also protecting its business model.

While I have managed to build a strong reputation at Colgate-Palmolive for being committed to my vision, I believe I am also known for having a strong focus on people and being passionate about developing a diverse legal team to deliver results.

At Colgate-Palmolive, we are a small team of three people – all women. However, I have always managed very diverse teams during my career in private practice, and in-house at BASF and adidas. Diversity for me, though, is not only about gender; it is about embracing all the different ways of thinking. When I worked for BASF and adidas, I had teams that were very diverse: different ages, sexes, social backgrounds, and points of view. The more diverse a team is, the more creative it can be.

“Diversity for me is not only about gender; it is about embracing all the different ways of thinking.”

As well as being responsible for building my own diverse legal teams, I also promote gender equality across the business. I feel as a leader I have the responsibility to promote diversity. Within Colgate-Palmolive, I am the internal sponsor of the Colgate Women Network in Southern Cone territories, which is the region under my scope (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay). The Colgate Women Network is a global initiative that fosters an inclusive and diverse environment, and different activities are carried on in every country around the world. But the initiative has local implementation too. In Southern Cone, we organise activities and lectures and try to develop policies in order to help women grow in their careers with Colgate. For example, we organise inspiring breakfasts with women leaders in the region. These are often in an interview format, so that attendees can get to understand their experiences, the obstacles those women had to deal with while they forged their careers, and how they have managed their work-life-family balance. In 2019, we organised lectures on topics such as leadership, personal branding, and personal finance.

I am also committed to promoting gender equality outside my work environment, and I am currently involved with organisations such as IDEA to help promote diversity and inclusion in law firms and companies. While there is certainly a long way to go before there is gender equality in the legal industry, it is not the only industry in which it is more difficult to be listened to and to get ahead if you are a woman. I used to have that feeling – of not being listened to – especially when I was younger. But, the world has changed a lot… and it is still changing. Fortunately, in my current job, I don’t experience this anymore, and I’ve certainly been able to move ahead with my career. What I have observed, though, is that in private practice, the pace of change is much slower: the number of female partners is still much smaller than the number of male partners.

Quotas, of course, could go a long way towards solving the gender imbalance in the legal industry, but I do have mixed thoughts about them. In some cases, I believe quotas could be a good way to help those women who could not have got to a certain place without that kind of help; and I believe they can be helpful, especially in industries in which there is still a lot of work to be done with gender equality. However, using quotas to simply make up the numbers won’t work – for true equity and equality to take hold, there has to be a cultural shift and a change of mindset about women’s place in the workforce.

Denise Guillen Lara

Roman jurist Dompia Ulpianus defined justice as ‘the continuous and perpetual willingness to give each one his own’. This concept of justice has always resonated in my heart; I have always seen justice as the solution to avoid conflict in a large community. This belief was especially relevant to me when I was growing up, given that I was part of a large family consisting of three brothers, one sister, and of course my two parents. For me to survive in this large community, justice had to be implemented amongst our group so that each of us received what it was of our own! I believe it is very important to acknowledge that everyone has a place in their community; my place was as the ‘confrontational member’, always trying to assert and achieve justice. It is no wonder, then, that I decided to study law! I paved the pathway of my profession out of my passion.

Like many other lawyers, I have been both in-house and outside counsel. I started my career working in a big law firm, which allowed me to learn the fundamental skills that have helped me along my career: thorough thinking; in-depth analysis; problem solving; network building; technology tools usage; courage to take new opportunities; understanding of and exposure to international markets; and business ethics. I was also lucky to learn from several role models who showed me how important it is to ‘walk the talk’.

I am an extrovert by nature, and this was particularly useful in my private practice career. It allowed me to confidently interact with senior partners, and to learn from them and their experiences; I emulated what they did to achieve a similar result. After several years working in private practice I took my first in-house role – as general counsel of General Electric (GE). Key to my decision to move was the opportunity to acquire new skills and to learn from new role models. In fact, a big motivator for me when I consider taking on new roles is the leader who I will report into. I look for someone who will support and encourage my constant professional and personal development. Also hugely important to me is that my employer fosters a culture of inclusion and supports the development of female talent. Specifically, I look for programmes and policies that allow women to have a work-life balance, for example remote working and maternity leave.

I have been extremely lucky not to have experienced gender-based barriers during my career. I have never suffered harassment; my bosses have been my biggest sponsors (I have been part of several mentoring programmes); and I have a good work-life balance. I was even once hired during my last month of pregnancy. Unfortunately, this is not the case for all female talent in Mexico. As demonstrated by a 2018 study developed by AbogadasMX jointly with CIMAD and Marea Consulting, there are both internal (personal and unconscious bias) and external barriers (organisational structures) that women face in progressing both in private practice and in-house roles, and that organisations and law firms must do better to create equal opportunities for women. That should start with those who are in leadership positions.

Ultimately, all organisations should be a reflection of the people working for them, and it is the responsibility of leaders to build a culture where the success of the company is intrinsically linked to its inclusion of female talent and to creating equal opportunities for all talent. Implementing programmes and policies that allow for this to happen are vital in eliminating both the internal and external gender-based barriers. When I think of my own experiences I would say that for women in the legal profession, companies (i.e. in-house) are doing a better job than law firms. While law firms most commonly implement special considerations for women at a senior level, in-house counsel seem to have the same opportunities at every level.

One final observation, though, is that neither law firms nor companies tend to have formal mentoring programmes or networking opportunities. The biggest barrier for women in Mexico, I believe, is the perpetuation of ‘machismo’ culture, something that even women seem to believe in and uphold. Approximately 95% of the women lawyers who participated in the AbogadasMX study still believe that they should be the ones taking care of the children and the house. Women lawyers who become mothers often decide not to continue working after having children, or if they do decide to continue, they decrease substantially the amount of hours they work and do not take on further responsibilities. This strong internal bias was shown to be almost equal in private and in-house practice; there was a slight trend towards private practice, mostly due to the need to demonstrate long hours worked because of the hourly billing structure.

“It is the responsibility of every woman in a leadership position to help other women reach their full potential.”

One of the biggest challenges I faced when I was hired to hold the position of LatAm regional counsel was the constant travel. I needed to make sure that my two daughters were taken care of, that they were safe, happy, and attending school. I was able to overcome the obstacles by building a support network (my sister, the nanny, school parents) to help me with the day-to-day duties. All of them have been amazingly empathic and have given me support when I needed it. I have also been able to work remotely, which allows me to compensate for the time that I travel by staying at home with my girls while I work. It’s also really important for me to communicate to my girls that I have to travel as part of my job, but that when I do they will always be well taken care of.

In my current role at Nielsen I help to promote diversity in many ways. Alongside my role as legal director, I am also head of the compliance and integrity programme. It is my job to make sure that no one is discriminated against in any way. I manage all harassment cases and impose penalties, and I make sure that all employees are treated equally and fairly. I am part of an Employee Resource Group (ERG) called WIN (Women in Nielsen), and participate in different activities to help more women achieve leadership positions. I have been invited to share my experiences with other women globally to inspire them, and am currently participating in Nielsen’s global mentoring programme, acting as a mentor for a female talent based in the US. It has been a real thrill to be able to influence the personal and professional development of another woman.

External to my role with Nielsen, I am a board member of AbogadasMX, an association dedicated to helping women lawyers achieve leadership positions. I am also part of the board of INCAM, the longest-running bar association in Mexico striving for gender equality. I am convinced that it is the responsibility of every woman in a leadership position to help other women reach their full potential and progress in their careers. We need to ‘send the elevator down’ to new talent, and we need to see diversity and inclusion of female talent as a competitive advantage.

We are lucky at Nielsen that our CEO is also our chief diversity officer, because he believes that diversity and inclusion are inextricably linked to the overall success of the business: to drive systemic change, we look for diversity in people and thought, and aim to be consistent with our operating principle to engage, include, and decide. We have identified the need for accountability; by this we mean that every Nielsen associate owns diversity and inclusion efforts, and their involvement is linked to performance processes. This helps to ensure that every one of our associates is able to reach their full potential. The entire leadership team now serves as sponsors for ERGs; they are personally accountable for how they are driving diversity and inclusion and Nielsen expects that all people managers become active participants either in ERGs or as mentors. We are also working to achieve gender equality in top leadership positions.

It is important to me to build a diverse team. I lead by example, because I have learned from the example of the leaders that I have reported to. I am also in favour of hiring outside counsel that have diverse teams, because outside counsel should be a reflection of the in-house culture of diversity and inclusion. I need to lead by example in hiring providers that have diverse talent in leadership positions.

I am 100% in favour of gender quotas, but I also believe that positions should be occupied by the best talent. There are always excuses that quotas limit to hire/promote the best talent, but in my point of view this is only an historical excuse not to move forward with quotas and achieve gender parity.

If I could give advice to myself at the start of my career I would say ‘count your blessings every day and appreciate what you have achieved. However, don’t ever think that you’re at the finish line. There are always new opportunities for achieving new goals and it is more important to enjoy the process of achieving the goals than achieving the goal itself. Constant improvement of yourself will produce happiness, pride, joy, and self-accomplishment.’ n