Team size:  Five

 What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have been involved in over the past year?

High stake matters which have a bearing on the Company’s profitability and viability. All such matters though challenging were concluded favourably for the organisation. These matters involved legal and commercial strategy, out of the box thinking and deep negotiation skills. A great deal of learning and honed the skills of strategising and implementing for me as well as my team.

 What innovations have you made to the way your legal team works in the past year?

Constant knowledge upgradation, participative style of leadership, building confidence and allow the juniors to take charge and ownership of specific assignments. Impressed upon the team to adopt the best practices in India and globally. The real driver is to groom the team members to become business managers as an aid to business development and growth, by moving away from a mind-set of litigation lawyer. This is the real worth of a GC and legal department to the organisation and the promoters.

Which political, economic or regulatory changes have impacted your work the most in the past year?

We work and cater to the government sector. Thus, change of government causes a gap or transition when as professionals we have to realign our approach to work. However, one must be pragmatic that keeping the main organisational goals, the ethos of the organisation, to surge ahead in the new government scenario. In the new India growth driver, governments are growth oriented.

How do you motivate and manage the other members of your legal team well?

I share my long corporate experience to boost the confidence and morale of the team and importantly make them learn how to be calm, composed in adversity. The goal and the path should be clear and unobstructed despite odds. The self-confidence and ability to challenge set procedures is which differentiates between two professionals. I try to inculcate all these values in the team. Once we come out successful, the team members realise that their churn in the stress conditions with demanding timelines, made them emerge confident & stronger.

India is an economy that is rapidly growing and expected to be one of the powerhouses of the 21st Century. How do you see the role of GCs there changing in this environment?

With the high intellect and talent pool available, I see GCs surge in the next decade when the Prime Minister is focussed to take India to world’s 3rd largest economy. The GC role will transform into cross border transactions, raising the knowledge bar, becoming an integral part of top management as advisors on every business situation. The interface with Board of Directors on key business decisions would also make the GC stand tall. More importantly, the speed of doing business would call the GC and his team to become proactive to rise to the occasion.

What is a cause, business-related or otherwise, that you are passionate about, and why?

Knowledge sessions in my professional network, excel in my work sphere, gain the confidence of top management and continue to follow the right path of law and the four corners in each decision-making process. I am also passionate about corporate governance and its application in business.

Are the effects of AI on the legal world overplayed, or underplayed?

My personal view AI is overplayed. While the technology support is a key to any business scenario, thus AI cant be ignored. The benefits of AI have to be adopted and see how it helps to rationalise the Business Processes and methods of working.

However, the underlying message is that there can be no replacement of human brain which is supreme. In fact, the use of right brain and left brain is much talked about subject. In fact, average human brain rarely goes beyond 10-14% of left-brain utilisation, which is the core area of analytical thinking and reasoning.