Category: Interviews

GC: Can you tell me a little bit about your background and what it was that prompted you to work in the law?

Akhil Prasad (AP): I’m a first-generation lawyer. My father was a medical practitioner and my mother was a professor, so neither of them were in the legal field. I faced a lot of failures in my early life. I wanted to do medicine, I applied to many colleges, but I could not get through. Then I switched my CV from science to commerce; I did very well in my Commerce Bachelor’s degree, but then I failed miserably – I could not get admission into MBA colleges. I could clear all written exams, but I could not clear the interviews.

So I thought, let’s try my luck with law, and thought ‘let’s internationalise law’, which is usually a local profession. And as the luck would have it, I did company secretary in India and UK, Bachelors and Master’s degree in Law in India, a PhD in Commerce and doctorate in Law in India, Solicitor of England and Wales, a Masters of Law from Northwestern University, USA and Business Administration from IE Business School, Spain. So it kept on growing. Now I am grateful that my organisation has sponsored me to go and study at Wharton for the advanced leadership programme.

It has been a long journey of about 25 years, during which I have been fortunate to work as general counsel and a member of the board of directors of some really big names. I started with Xerox (1993-2000), then I did my stint with Electrolux (2000-2002), then I did General Motors (2002-2005), then The Walt Disney Company (2005-2007), Fidelity (2007-2013) and now Boeing (since 2013). It has been a really diverse experience across different industries, a big learning, but it turned me into a corporate lawyer with specialisation in M&A – although, in India, in the legal function, it’s everything under the sun.

GC: Once you made that decision to pursue law, what made you go and work for a corporation rather than work in a law firm or as a litigator?

AP: I initially wanted to go in for practice, but I lost my father very early so it was more that I had to support the family – me and my mother and my wife. I took the rather safe course of a general counsel, so to say, rather than venturing out into a more risky legal practice. It was 25 years ago since I found that the practice side was risky, so I became a corporate secretary, at Xerox. Having been exposed to a multinational like Xerox, I kept on educating myself about various types of corporate law in India, and then international laws, as I grew in my career with different companies. International law became very, very important to me, and then I started to like corporate life more than the practice side, because the corporate side gives you a lot of diversity, a lot of management and business opportunities, and the chance to work with people having diverse capabilities, not essentially within the legal domain. So that was something I started to enjoy.

GC: You’ve done a lot of postgraduate study, including a doctor of laws in media piracy. Can you tell me about that area of interest?

AP: In fact, I have two PhDs: one PhD in Commerce, the other is a doctorate in Law. My PhD in Commerce began when I started my career with Xerox and, in those days – ‘95, ’96 – there was no interconnection of stock exchanges and investors faced lots problems, so my research was about better international practices overseas and how India can learn and adapt, mostly on the investor protection side.

The doctorate in Law in media piracy began when I became the general counsel for Disney, and that was in 2005. Whether it’s music, film or publications, there is rampant piracy in media, so I decided to look at some of the actions that should be taken in terms of enforcement, which should help develop the media business. For example, one of the things I wrote about in my thesis at that point of time was distribution of music. About 95% of music and a large number of films were prone to piracy, so one of the recommendations was that we should have some secure form for distribution of music and films. The music industry has since seen a transformation with digital distribution platforms like those offered by Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Star and others, which are secure distributive forms, and they have minimised the piracy and enhanced consumer experience with digital content. Film and music streaming is big business now, and Disney too is making lots of commitment in this area.

GC: Studying for two PhDs must have been enormously time-consuming outside of your actual day job?

AP: Yes, as I did all my education while working (no study leaves), it did stretch my day to 20 hours a day – it was a lot of effort. But effort well spent, and I think I’m quite happy with what I’ve done so far.

GC: As you’ve touched upon, you have worked in a variety of different sectors. How has that been? Have you found that the legal role differs substantially across those sectors?

AP: I have been very careful in my career that I don’t label myself, so I never repeated an industry. When I looked for other opportunities, I was really fortunate that my employers looked at me as a legal specialisation, who could fit into any business. About 70% of my role was as a corporate lawyer, as a general counsel. But it also gave me a 30% opportunity to learn the business and adapt myself to the legal requirements of that particular kind of industry. Xerox was office automation, Electrolux was white goods, General Motors was automobiles, Disney was media, Fidelity was IT, ITES and private equity and, now, Boeing is aerospace and defence. So I enjoy my role as a general counsel, having worked for different industries and learned about their business aspects, which keeps one’s mind fresh and you are able to learn and contribute better.

GC: Are there any particular learning points that stand in your mind from individual sectors that have helped you grow as a lawyer?

AP: I feel that any lawyer will always be valued in the organisation if you are able to do a lot of problem solving, which may or may not pertain to legal problems alone. When you are a general counsel, your capability should be to be able to build up trust and confidence in your business partners, and that personal confidence comes with good research. Always you should have a mind to develop yourself and learn more about your business. The general counsel, sometimes, is the only person who knows about law in the management team, so he or she is a person who has to really translate law into something which can be understood very easily by the management team and other stakeholders. At the same time, the general counsel has to have an open mind to understand the business requirements, because unless you understand business it will not be possible for a general counsel to be able to offer value to the management team. The general counsel has to have a broader mindset: to learn more and be able to contribute more is essential. Further, I treat all my colleagues as my clients and all of them deserve my best services.

GC: Are there any major trends in the aerospace and defence that are impacting on your role as country counsel?

AP: The world is shrinking, and more so in the digital space and the artificial intelligence space. It’s a disruptive, competitive environment. For example, if you look at aerospace, it is not only a domain for very few companies, there are companies like Google, there are companies like Tesla, who are wanting to enter. Then there are the high-growth companies like Facebook and Apple and others. I think, to be successful, it is very essential for anybody, even a lawyer or general counsel, to really understand technology, as it has become a very integral part of any business. So it is essential for all of us to be able to embrace technology and we have to adapt to technology.

The second most important thing is communication, which is extremely critical to be successful in today’s world. A general counsel and his/her team should be able to effectively communicate with all colleagues in the organisation and should be able to explain law in a way they would understand and absorb.

The third thing I would say is responsiveness. Whenever there is a demand or a requirement of your client, it has to be done with urgency, the advice has to be qualitative, and it should be something which reaches your client immediately. In today’s world, anyone who can respond to the client’s need with urgency, quality and solving problems will be highly appreciated. Technology has made our environment faster and world smaller without boundaries, so response to client’s needs should be immediate and with a sense of urgency.

GC: What are challenges that you’re dealing with day to day in your role?

AP: Some major challenges in any industry are the regulations, especially when we are dealing with products or services which are highly regulated. The most important challenge is to be able to navigate business effectively amid the regulatory landscape. Whether it’s business in India, whether it’s in the US, or in China, a general counsel will be successful if they are able to swiftly navigate business across various geographies. Law is a very local subject, unlike other functions like finance or sales, which are more global, so today’s general counsel should make law as a global and international subject, through research and connections across the globe. That is why a general counsel’s biggest challenge is to be able to really understand the various landscapes of regulations across the world and be able to facilitate business growth, especially for global businesses.

GC: What areas of regulation are most impactful at the moment?

AP: Data is supreme for everyone. Therefore, I would say that the most important regulation is one on data privacy, which has enormous implications. Data collection, import-export across geographies, storage and deletion, per the global developments on data privacy, would require a lot of attention and diligence. We are looking at major initiatives that Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, WhatsApp, Microsoft and others are putting in this area, as the world is getting more and more sensitive on how companies manage data, and this has already become a huge risk factor for those who are not able to manage it well. Thus, data protection regulations, would require a lot of attention and focus from the general counsel’s office.

GC: Looking forward, what’s next on your plate over the next year or so?

AP: I am making a very conscious effort that I should be able to provide better and varied services to my clients. My ambition is to learn more on the business and management side, to learn more on the side of products and services that are being offered by my employer. I want to devote a lot of time educating myself on the finer aspects of business and management, and that is where I see I will be devoting my energies – to be able to provide better and varied services to my employer.

GC: Do you ever envisage yourself moving into a more business-related role?

AP: I would definitely like to look at myself on the business side. Having done legal for most of my career, if I am able to become a business leader one day that would be something which I really want to achieve.

GC: Is there another PhD on the horizon for you, do you think?

AP: You never know! You never know, because knowledge definitely helps you. Education and learning is what I will always continue. And what I have seen is, the more you do research, you train your mind and you learn new things, and that new learning automatically gets translated into better services for your client.

GC: Can you tell me a little bit about your background and how you came to work in the law?

K Satish Kumar (SK): I am a commerce Honours graduate with a professional qualification from a premier institution in law and, in addition, I am a certified cost and management accountant (CMA) from the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India. The two professional qualifications have helped me a lot in my career progression. Basically, I started off my career thinking to be in the finance trade – I wanted to be a cost accountant or a financial professional in the corporate world. I went into the finance department of a corporation but I always had a passion towards law, and the management thought I had an aptitude and took me into the legal department. In any organisation in the corporate world you will have a very big finance team but the legal team will be very small, so getting recognised for all your work is easier if you are in the legal team. Fortunately for me, I had both the qualifications and having commercial knowledge and a professional degree in finance gives me additional edge.

GC: Was it quite straightforward at the time, making that transition from finance to legal?

SK: It was not a very straightforward move. But I had the qualification in legal and, at that time, the opportunity also – the legal department felt my legal knowledge would be useful to the organisation. So I think I was the right man in the right place – that is how I would put it. The opportunity came, and I grabbed it with both my hands and that’s it. And I haven’t looked back from there.

GC: You have predominantly worked in the software technology sector. Was this an area you were always interested in?

SK: I always wanted to be in the new technology sector. I started my career in the late 1990s when the first wave of the Internet was storming the world. I was very much interested to be in this new technology, and I got my first opportunity with Satyam Infoway back office. I have my footprints in some of the leading software technology companies, like HCL Technologies, Polaris Software Ltd (later on the product division became Intellect Design Arena Ltd) and now with Ramco Systems Ltd – a leading software product company with a global presence. My working experience in HCL Technologies, Intellect Design Arena Ltd and Ramco Systems greatly helped me to hone my legal negotiation skills.

I also have experience working Fortune 100 companies like Chemoil. I had a different experience, working as a senior legal adviser to Brigadier Waleed Zawawi – one of the royal families in the Sultanate of Oman – but my passion has always been in the technology sector.

GC: What are the major trends in the software industry that impact on your role as general counsel?

SK: There are a lot of challenges in the software industry. Ramco has a global presence – we have presence right from Europe, the Middle East, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and we are taking our footprint to other countries as well. So we have presence across the globe, and that really gives me additional challenge with respect to complying with the requirements of each of the geographies. As a GC of a multinational global company, I cannot say that I am not aware of all the legal regulations in, for example, Japan. And not only the regulatory aspect, I have to deal and interact with lawyers across the globe. When negotiating and closing an agreement, most of the time I have to travel to meet face-to-face with the lawyers.

The other aspect, I would say, is that the business team is present across the globe, and requires support. The expectation from the business team is to support them round the clock. Matching up to the requirement of the business team in different time zones is a challenge on its own. I get calls from early in the morning right through the day, till I settle down to a call from the US late in the evening. I am on my phone right through the day. So a fast-growing product technology company like Ramco Systems is really a challenging environment to be in.

GC: You also have data protection under your remit. What challenges does this particular aspect pose for you and your team?

SK: Data Protection is the new addition to my existing role as the general counsel. With GDPR coming into effect on May 25th 2018 there was a lot of expectation among the clients and within the organisation as to the evaluation of our privacy set up within Ramco. As the general counsel with experience in privacy law, the mantle of chief data protection officer fell on me. I gladly accepted the role and started the journey into the privacy world. Slowly we have mapped ourselves with the privacy laws across the globe such as Australia, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Canada, etc.

I think that GDPR has been the forefront of the privacy laws across the globe and, post that, I’m seeing a spate of privacy laws coming up everywhere. But to be very frank with you, I see the Australian Data Breach legislation [the Australian Notifiable Data Breaches scheme] to be the toughest of all the privacy laws.

The challenges that we face in data protection are manifold. Ramco must keep up with protecting not only a customer’s personal information, but also sensitive personal information. Data has grown exponentially over the last decade, and poor security practices continue to put many organisations at risk of data breach. Personal identifiable information (PII) is one of the biggest concerns of data privacy. The veracity and volume of data in our technology-driven world is ever increasing, hence it becomes overwhelming to handle millions and possibly even billions of data records.

The other major challenge that we face is the cost of maintaining data privacy. A single data breach can cost organisations millions of dollars in lost revenue. If the data is breached, the organisation faces intense regulatory penalties from an array of regulatory bodies. We have to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment that, among other considerations, identifies the nature of personal identifiable information collected from the customers, where it is stored and how it is transmitted. We have to establish the data protection and privacy policies and monitor and enforce them continuously.

We have to further ensure that there is clear organisational accountability for privacy and data protection, apart from having a strong coordination among key stakeholders – the compliance team, information technology team, security team, etc. We implement comprehensive training and build employee awareness of risks, particularly what is expected of each employee to protect the organisation. Further, we ensure that the subcontractors have a similar security set-up as Ramco have. We ensure that we do not have misplaced or unverified reliance on third-party providers that have access to Ramco’s own information or that of our client information. We also design and implement robust monitoring and testing of privacy and data protection risks and related controls.

The breach level index for corporates is ever increasing. In Ramco, we have a strong data protection system and maintaining that level is a very big challenge for the office of the chief data protection officer.

GC: Does working for a software company mean you have cutting-edge software tools in your in-house team? Can you give any examples of your use of technology?

SK: Lawyers across the globe are not tech-savvy. Especially in the private practice world, where, at least that I can see in India, they are on the Dictaphone, they are dictating and somebody else is taking notes and then typing it and getting it signed from the lawyers.

But for us, fortunately, we are working in a technology company and that helps us to embrace technology with both hands. We are digitising all of our contracts. We have documents for the past 20 to 25 years, so it is a huge task, and I have paralegal staff who are managing this, to monitor when the agreements are expiring, when to renew, and communicating it to the business teams.

We also sign documents online, so we can track negotiations online – at what stage the document is in, which department has the claim. So email communication is literally removed now. We are tracking all the communications online and document tracking is completely done online. Gone are the days ten years back when I was the legal head at another software company and all the communication and negotiations were happening through email.

GC: Can you tell me about your legal team at Ramco?

SK: I am fortunate to have a very strong legal team at Ramco. Currently we have a strong, four-member team and we plan to expand it. Each member of my team carries more than ten years of experience and the legal team put together have over 50 years of hard-core legal experience. Each member of my legal team is capable enough to head a department of their own. In order to avoid monotony of work or redundancy we allocate all types of work to every member of the team equally.

While selecting the team members, I ensure that the candidate has the right aptitude. Knowledge can be learnt if a candidate has an aptitude. Hence, selection of the right candidate is very critical for the department. I also ensure that my team members learn at least one new legal aspect every day. I have weekly knowledge-sharing sessions within the team so that each member knows and grows together. I ensure that the legal team has a healthy environment and is transparent. Each member can handle any of the tasks in the legal department – be it IPR, litigation, contract negotiation or coordinating with counsel.

GC: What do you see as the big events or big challenges on the horizon over the next year or so?

SK: Over the next year or so, the expectation of business acumen from the legal department is going to increase. General counsel are expected to have an international mindset. There is more expectation of supporting the business team, especially on deal closure and the privacy aspect. The budgeted cost for the team is also going to be a major part.

Looking forward, we are going to see more of artificial intelligence/machine learning in the legal department. In-house counsel will be the first to adopt the AI/ML before it is taken on in a big way by external counsel. Already we are using technology in some form in the department and we are going to see more of such in the coming days.

GC: How do you think AI/ML will be used and will be useful for in-house teams?

SK: Basically, I have experienced candidates in my legal team ranging from ten years post-qualification experience to 15 years. Whether it be a lease rental agreement or a $100 million business agreement, I’m using the same resources. I am sure I can use them in a much more beneficial way in the closure of bigger contracts if I have better artificial intelligence or machine learning software which can take care of the routine stuff – a non-disclosure agreement or a rental lease agreement. I can spend the time of my legal resources for a much better team; an organisation which will increase the top line and give value addition to the company. I am trying to maximise productivity through the technology that is coming in.

GC: When do you think this technology will come in?

SK: In somewhere between six to 18 months, I am looking to have that in my system.

GC: You do quite a lot of pro bono work. What drives your involvement in this area?

SK: I think all professionals should be involved in some activities which give back to the society. We derive a lot of benefit from this society; society has made us what we are today – experienced professionals. We owe something back to the society.

I feel that everyone in their lifetime has one or other legal problem. There are people who may not be able to afford the best legal advice. I think that is when we can step in and make a major difference.Any counselling, direction, opinion or genuine advice will make a world of difference to these needy people. For me, it doesn’t really cost much. But it gives me immense satisfaction when I see the smiling face at the other end after my counselling or legal advice.

I decided to reach people through social media – Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Google were some of the mediums which I adopted to reach the people. It was very successful, I was surprised at the response levels of the people. In a very short period, I had a fan following club of over 7000 people. People approached me with various problems. Some wanted to know the process to adopt a child, some wanted to reconcile with their spouse, property disputes among legal heirs, child abuse, work place bullying or abuse, sexual harassment – all sorts of things. I ensure that just as I give some time to my family, I also give some time to society. I ensure that I give at least three hours on a Saturday and three hours on a Sunday for my pro bono work, and the rest of the day is for my family. This has given me a lot of moral satisfaction.

During my early career, such pro bono legal work provided me a training ground, providing early opportunities for depositions, building client relationships, arguing motions, first-chairing trials and other valuable work experience to build skills and confidence.

Nowadays, charitable and pro bono legal work provides me opportunities to meet people with very different backgrounds and interests whom I may not otherwise meet in my daily life. Fundraising for charities, serving as a board member for a non-profit organisation and the like have connected me with local business leaders and led to new friends.

The decision to get into law was decided at the early age of 17. I think what excited or drove me to be a lawyer was the fact that I was always interested in pro bono work and the uplifting of society. I used theatre as a medium to communicate changes to society, I was always involved in street plays.

It was a long journey to becoming the general counsel at The Kraft Heinz Company (KHC) in India. Like most, I started out in private practice and worked as an M&A lawyer. After ten years’, I felt that I had reached my potential in terms of what I could learn in private practice and sought opportunities in-house.

In 2017 I joined KHC and one of the things that I identified with was that we are a meritocracy – we value that and I’m an example of merit in action: when I joined I was the GC for India, but today I’m also on the board of directors, earning that seat after a year. I really value that here, we invest in our people and reward those who perform.

Having a system which rewards on merit is important, because I think that for women, a glass ceiling does still exist. Especially when you get to senior management positions, in a lot of places, there are some very natural stereotypes that get perpetuated – and they’re not necessarily consciously perpetuated, it’s woven into the fabric of the DNA. It’s still an old boys club. Having said that, I think we’re making major growth into looking at this issue seriously and not mere tokenism.

On a personal level, the other thing that attracted me to them was the fact that they have really iconic brands that have stood the test of time. I’m a foodie, so working in a company like that is a natural fit. And how could it be better than working for a company that makes cheese? I love cheese!

At KHC in India, I am responsible for the legal and regulatory functions, corporate secretarial work, as well as corporate and governmental affairs. So it’s three big functions rolled into one. It requires me to be the custodian of the vanguard of the company’s ethics and compliance, along with their litigation and business risks, as well as managing their governmental affairs and making sure that – not only are we maintaining very high standards in compliance, but we are managing the company’s legal exposure.

A typical work day for me could start at seven in the morning to put out a crisis in the factory regarding labour issues, and it could end with me trying to make sure that we’ve signed a celebrity for a brand representation contract. So it can be a very different dynamic every day, with several fires to put out!

GC: Can you tell me a little bit about your background and how you came to be working in the law and working in-house?

Nitin Mittal (NM): I’m a qualified law graduate, a corporate secretary and also have a degree in finance. I believe in continuous education and, to that end, I recently also completed a Masters degree in business law from National Law School Bangalore, India’s premier university.

I started my career with a corporate, not a law firm, in corporate law, and the responsibilities on starting that job were multiple – not only law, but also finance, administration, real estate. But, gradually my passion and interest attracted me to the core area of law and I wanted to give my full attention to it because it clearly was my calling and passion.

For the last 13 years, I have been heading the legal function for companies that I have worked for. I am currently working with Phillips Lighting – for the last three years – which has now changed to Signify and, before that, I was with a German multinational called OSRAM for around ten years. Being an in-house lawyer and having worked at companies with global presence, getting exposure to different functions and people with different cultures within different business contexts has really shaped me as an in-house lawyer, and given me a holistic view of complex business issues, and how the external and internal environment changes. So that is how I have grown as a lawyer within the last 16 to 17 years of my career.

GC: What was it that made you want to work for a corporation as opposed to a law firm when you were starting out in your career?

NM: Apart from being a law graduate, my interests were also to leverage my degree as a corporate secretary – and if you want to leverage that degree then you need to work in a corporate. I was not so inclined to work on the litigation side in a law firm, as I come from a business family background. Hence, I wanted to work close to where the business is, and that is why I think I got attracted to the corporate field more than the law firm field.

GC: You’ve obviously worked in the lighting sector for quite a long time. What are the major trends that you’re navigating in that field in India?

NM: The lighting industry has witnessed a major transformation towards LED lighting over the past couple of years, across the globe, since 2014. The ratio of LEDification (as we call it) from traditional lights to LED continues to increase, enabled by several government initiatives, because the government in India is also promoting LED usage to enhance energy efficiency. But this ultimately led to revenue stagnation because the price point was going down drastically. As a result, the LED lighting industry saw the emergence of several low-cost competitors that offered low-cost LED products with no differentiation, which started bringing about even further price pressure – so even though the volume is increasing, the price is decreasing and, overall, the stress on margin is high. This trend peaked in 2018.

The challenge for the industry is to find new areas of growth beyond simple commercial lighting. For example, we have come up with a new innovation called LiFi – light fidelity – which gives you a stable and fast broadband data connection through light waves, as a powerful substitute for WiFi.

Then of course there is applying light to horticulture – how do you use light to drive productivity in horticulture, in plants, in vegetables, in chickens and livestock? How do you bring highly optimised, low-cost connected solutions to increase the penetration of lighting further?

The industry is looking at applying new trends that you see in business models, like lighting as a service, not as a product but as a service, and value-based pricing, with use of artificial intelligence and high automation.

From a general counsel perspective, these will lead to new legal scenarios – contracts becoming more complex, long term, PPP, and more digital and security laws, including specific regulations. You will find the need to have a deeper view of privacy because you need to use the data of customers for connected lighting, and you may need to monetise data. I think with this fast growth and transformation in the lighting industry, general counsels need to be up to date on new technologies, especially on the digital side – in different ways lighting is now more than illumination. We have to be fast thinkers; we have to come up with global solutions to problems that we never faced before. We always have new problems before us to solve. For this, we need to have out-of-the-box thinking, new solutions.

GC: As regards your role at Signify, what are the particular challenges that you’re dealing with at the moment?

NM: The main challenge in my role is to manage multiple issues in legal compliance and governance. We have a very lean team: including me, there are three people and we have to manage a business of more than €500 million. India is the fourth largest market for Signify worldwide. We tend to seek out the complex stuff but there are also minor things at any given point of time. I could be handling multiple regulators, whether there are labour laws, technology laws, competition law, or a complex negotiation, or litigation – civil or criminal – and, of course, compliance. With a small, lean team, I think you have to handle so many things at any point of time plus being updated with a lot of things that are happening in corporate laws, technology, in digital laws.

I think this is the main challenge: how do you gear up to do things that add value? You have to, as a general counsel, recognise how you reduce things which are not productive, which are not adding value to the legal function, to the organisation, and do things which matter the most, which are necessary for the organisation because of the changing industry. What Marcus Aurelius wrote in his book, Meditations – one should prompt oneself ‘Is this, or is it now, something necessary?’ – is very apt for us.

I see numerous situations where law is very equivocal, or core judgments are ultimately in a state of flux. Business demands are dynamic and advice is required to consider all these aspects. The spirit and the intent of the law need to adhered be at all times. So I think managing time qualitatively and tactfully is imperative.

GC: How does your team sit within the wider Signify legal team globally?

NM: India is part of growth markets within Signify. I am the leader of the team, but I also do a lot of things which are direct. We need leaders who are actually very hands on, do direct negotiations with customers, do property and M&A deals directly as well. We have a strong focus on integrity and compliance. My other two team members work on contracts, on business advisory, on compliance, on governance, on various other aspects of business – I think everybody really lives life to the full as part of a global team.

We are fully integrated with the worldwide legal team because globally the legal team is very close knit. They interact often and you can share any problems with them and you can also share knowledge with them. Knowledge sharing is very much a part of the culture in the legal function, and leveraging each other’s advantages and sense is also another key attribute of the function. Last year, I did a complex project in Morocco from India, and led that contract from the legal side, so I think geography is not a limitation right now. A legal team can be situated anywhere, and they can do things for other countries as well.

GC: You have digitised many of your legal and business tasks. Can you talk about that process of digitisation and any key learnings that arose?

NM: It is my firm belief that technology will provide efficiency and also effectiveness to the GC role and for business. We have a contract management tool to ensure that we can have sales and purchasing contracts stored digitally. People can retrieve contracts and it can give alerts when contracts need to be reviewed. We are currently reviewing this to make it more all-encompassing.

Secondly, we have a very big initiative on managing compliance of various laws. India is a complex country with more than 25 states, and each of these states has their own laws. We as a company have two manufacturing locations, multiple offices, and around 200 laws under which we would be governed. How as a company do you ensure that you’re complying with all these laws? So through technology we mapped all these laws through different functions within the company, and all these individuals now get alerts: this is a law that you have to comply with, please upload evidence, please ensure that you are complying. This is monitored through that digital tool, which we give to an external party.

On governance, we also digitised our board meetings so we don’t do them through paper, everything is done digitally. That enables a lot of efficiency at the board meetings. This is also good for sustainability and the environment.

We are also looking at some other initiatives, especially when we do projects – how do we manage projects happening across the country, where we use contractors?

I think the mindset is that technology is there to stay, whether it’s analytics, whether it is blockchain, whether it is artificial intelligence. But the question is how do you use it successfully in a cost-effective manner? And these new technology initiatives also pose challenges, because they should be understood by all the participants and the rationale should be justified, otherwise it will not work. You have to have a buy-in from everybody – if you roll out and people don’t fully understand it, or fully understand the benefit and simplicity that it brings, it will not work in the long term. It is very important that everybody is on the same page when you are rolling out technology initiatives in the company.

GC: Are those technology initiatives used elsewhere in the global Signify legal team, or is that something that you’ve been spearheading from India?

NM: On governance, for example doing board meetings without paper, is very India-specific. Compliance with law, which was a big project that was only India-specific – nowhere in the world has a software which monitors compliance with all applicable laws.

GC: Looking to the future, can you tell me about what you see as the big events or the big challenges on the horizon over the next year that will impact on your team and how you’ll be supporting the business?

NM: I think the biggest challenge I see for Signify is managing the transformation that the lighting industry is facing, shifting from conventional lighting to LED, and now from LED to connected lighting. How will we gear up to offer an unmatched value proposition to the customer and diversify our product and service portfolio to differentiate us as a leader in the industry?

As a legal function in the future, over the next one-to-two years, I think we need to be more agile, more focused on where are we adding value for the organisation and where we need to concentrate more. I think these are the two or three things we really need to get up to speed to as a legal function if we want to support the company in its transformation going forward.

Another project we are doing is basically concentrating on things that we can stop doing, and focus on things that are adding value. I think those things are really important in the future because of limited resources, and focusing more on the changing portfolio of the company.

There aren’t many people in the start-up space who are lawyers; I realised that I was probably one of the first guys who said at a very early stage that I wanted to be part of the start-up sector, this is where I want to focus, this is the most interesting space.

I graduated in 2015 from National Law School Bangalore. I was hired by a law firm and I spent some time there before I was hired as general counsel of start-up news curation app Inshorts, around the time they raised $20m from Tiger.

Inshorts was facing legal issues over their intellectual property and over their content, and they also had very few internal processes for a company that had grown from 20 to 60 in three months, and planned to grow to 200 in the next few months. They needed someone to oversee that growth – ideally this was not in the domain of legal, but when you are a very small company with a very small core team, you don’t ask these questions. I was tasked with setting up all their HR policies, their committee against sexual harassment, to ensure that basic laws with respect to labour and employment were followed, that basic processes existed. On the legal side, I had to file their trademarks, ensure there were no copyright violations and ensure that the company was well protected as a 360° view.

I was contacted by Mobile Premier League (MPL) last year. MPL is a gaming company and they wanted to build the world’s largest e-sports and digital sports gaming platform. The legal landscape for gaming is very different from what I was doing at Inshorts, but now we’re one of India’s fast-growing apps – we’re eight months old and we have over 25 million users.

With legal, most of those who are involved at the start-up level are potentially younger, with four or five years of experience. As the company grows really big, there is always the question about whether you need to bring in somebody who’s more experienced and, if you were to, would they understand the business as well as somebody who has been involved from the very beginning? Would they have a better understanding of the digital and tech space – which is essentially lacking in India? What is the right balance of experience and youth as a company grows?

When you first join, you are given a shoestring budget and a bunch of things that you need to achieve with that. However, your budget will increase and also what you need to achieve will increase, so you are no longer looking at only protecting the bare minimum – you might now be looking at aggressively trying to protect your brand, for example. That kind of switch is challenging, because you are calibrating and recalibrating your plans completely.

GC: Can you tell me about your background and how you came to work in the law?

Amar Sundram (AS): I graduated in History (Honours) from Kirori Mal College, North Campus, University of Delhi. After graduating, I joined the law course in the Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi, which was a three-year course. This was one of the best law colleges in India, and as my journey progressed, history took a back seat and law became interesting. I was picked up during the campus placement and selected from 200 students as an in-house law trainee with DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd, which was a manufacturing set-up in the small industrial city of Kota, Rajasthan.

GC: What made you want to join a company, rather than going to a law firm or becoming an independent litigator?

AS: To be transparent, it was not my preferred option, but it came by as a university placement. I decided to take a chance, to get a view of how being an in-house lawyer works, and what that organisation looked like. My initial thought was that I would stay for six months and then try something else. But the initial exposure was so good – there were a couple of high stakes litigations and I was given a chance to interact with two of the most senior lawyers in India in the Supreme Court. As my interest started developing, my inclination and desire to continue with law as an in-house counsel continued, and therefore I continued with my in-house career.

In 1997, I was elevated to the position of heading the legal department in one of the chemical plants where DCM was expanding, in another industrial city – Gujarat. This gave me an excellent opportunity to learn and interact with regulators and government officials, and get involved in inspections and understanding different components of the business, while interacting with various plant heads for different verticals. Meanwhile, I completed my post-graduate degree in law, an LLM from University of Delhi.

GC: What are the main challenges of your role currently?

AS: Heading the legal and compliance function of a large organisation like EY, with more than 17,000 employees including more than 450 partners spread across various service lines, is in itself a challenge. The ability to articulate the solution, taking care of the concerns and problems and then finding a common business-legal resolution that is acceptable to multiple stakeholders is a challenge I face almost on a daily basis. Instilling a culture of ethics, integrity and compliance by addressing the workforce in town halls across ten cities has been an interesting journey.

GC: What are the major challenges facing the consulting sector currently in India?

AS: This is not specific to EY, but for consulting organisations, like any other organisation that is product-driven, or any specific sector-driven organisation, what is happening today is there is a lot of new legislation and a lot of new regulations have come up. The economy is growing in India, there is a lot of investment and, therefore, new challenges are also being thrown open. The regulators have become very, very vigilant, and therefore the biggest challenge for any organisation that is into consultancy or that is product-driven is compliance. The old-fashioned style of working where organisations felt you can manage the work and not be compliant is history now. Today, organisations have to comply, and they have understood the ground reality that if they are not compliant it will hit their business. So in a consulting organisation, the challenge is more in terms of understanding the regulations and ensuring that we are on the right side of the law.

GC: What do you think has driven that? Why is compliance so much more important now than it was in the past?

AS: Ours is a global organisation, which has a presence across many countries, and globally people are seeing a trend in the change to law. Now law is no more a domain that is internal to a country – there are laws which are global laws, there are laws which have implications outside of one country. Legal has become a truly global function – this was not the scenario some five or ten years back. When organisations become global, the challenges become global.

GC: Can you tell me about your legal team at EY in India?

AS: When I joined EY India some seven years back, there were just two junior lawyers. Now there are 15 competent lawyers in my team looking after the entire legal function for India and Bangladesh, with added functions of compliance and secretarial.

GC: Can you talk about the journey of growing the legal team, and any major learnings you picked up along the way?

AS: The journey was not easy, as the legal department was initially seen as a cost centre. Generating confidence in the entire workforce, including the senior leadership team, of our ability to deliver and prevent litigation (and thus the expense), was indeed a journey well accomplished. Today, the team is competent to handle any problem and has been well groomed to represent the general counsel office. We work like a law firm, and any new legislation or new judgment that impacts the current business or is otherwise landmark is debated amongst the team. Knowledge is shared and each team member contributes.

GC: What’s your proudest moment or biggest achievement?

AS: The fact that the employees and the leadership across various service lines treat the entire legal team as their trusted and reliable advisers. They don’t hesitate to come to us at the first instance of a problem, even if they have committed some lapses, and to open up and discuss the issue with complete confidence and transparency – knowing full well that all their problems will have a solution from the general counsel office.

GC: What was your strategy for developing a close relationship and trust between the legal team and the wider business?

AS: The biggest step I took was to reach out to people – give them confidence, give them a decent hearing. And be available when they need me – so it is not that I am available only when I am available, but I am available when they want me to be available: taking calls, responding to their queries, meeting them, taking that express step to interact, understand the business, understand their problems, understand what they are doing and how law is embedded in their role and functionalities. How we can be helpful and how we can contribute, rather than waiting for them to come up with a problem and then giving a solution. I took the step of reaching out to the people, understanding, and asking them the question ‘how can we help you?’

That was a journey, a gradual process of transformation happened where people started believing that the legal department is fully integrated into the business. Their objectives and our objectives are common: we also want to do business, we also support them within the legal framework. And when the objectives are common, there will be a meeting of minds – and that is how people develop that trust.

GC: What have been your biggest challenges, and what did you learn from them?

AS: ‘Never give up’ is the mantra that I learnt in my career. There is no problem that does not have a solution. I have a policy for all my internal clients: please come to me with your problems; I will embrace your problem as mine and will provide you with a workable solution.

The message for young lawyers, which I give while delivering honorary guest lectures in law universities, is to read and write. A senior IT professional once asked me why people are now choosing law as a career and why lawyers are so successful. My response was that a good corporate lawyer has the ability to see the future direction and the ability to articulate his thought process, which no other professional has.

GC: What do you see as the big events or challenges on the horizon over the next year or so?

AS: The regulatory environment across the world is changing. One regulator is now interacting with another regulator. This is a digital world and the world of data. New legislation is being enacted and the thrust is compliance rather than contravention of law. Issues like insolvency, data privacy, arbitration, eradication of corruption and insider trading law compliances are going to be the main challenge that any organisation in India will be grappling with in the next three-to-five years. Organisations across all sectors will need a strong and competent in-house legal team to address these challenges. Breaches are going to be expensive, and will hit the business hard in this world of ‘media trial’.

GC: How do you think GCs and legal can have an impact in this world of ‘trial by media’? What can they do in this sphere when issues can be less tangible than a financial penalty?

AS: As you have rightly said, financial penalty is just one aspect. The media has become, especially in the Indian context, very, very sensitive and they love picking up news which excites, and which can catch the attention of the people. So reputational risk is something that is paramount to us. We do not want to be seen as an organisation which has issues, which has concerns – we want to be seen as an organisation which is compliant. We are very conscious of our reputation, we are very conscious of how people see us.

Our entire business is based on trust, and that is where the general counsel office has a big role to play – to ensure that the entire workforce, all the employees work, in tandem with the internal policies, they work in tandem with the laws, and any violations or any perceived violations are quickly resolved and people are taken to task. We are very firm in terms of enforcing our policies, we are very firm in terms of telling them: this is the applicable law, this is what the law says and what you are doing is not the correct way of doing it. The objective is to convince them.

In my organisation, people are receptive, they are compliant, because that is how the organisation. In an organisation of large repute we believe in compliance, we believe in not violating the law. That is an organisational culture and gradually everybody gets along with that policy.

GC: Would the legal team be involved if there was bad press arising from some kind of violation?

AS: Certainly, absolutely. If there is any kind of violation, any kind of internal disciplinary proceeding, the GC is always involved and always consulted and we do a very fair and transparent investigation in order to bring out the truth.