Team size:   Five

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

On process efficiency, I have been leading the AI powered contract and legal process automation initiative at PI. Recently, PI launched PI – Legal GPT and NDA Negotiator. These AI tools have simplified day-to-day legal work for the PI legal team and have freed up their bandwidth for transaction and governance focused work at the fund. My long-term goal is to build a renowned in-house legal department, one that is characterised by its strong legal expertise, and solution-oriented approach. I believe in an AI first approach for the legal function and recognise that AI is going to positively change legal service delivery. Therefore, am trying to embrace it early on by identifying relevant use cases for its deployment within the in-house function.

 Apart from legal matters, has the team worked on other company initiatives you would like to highlight?

Apart from legal matters, the team has been actively involved with PI’s AI powered contract and legal process automation initiative. Recently, PI launched PI – Legal GPT and NDA Negotiator which aims to simplify legal concepts and NDA drafting for members within the fund.

The team has been actively involved in regulatory advocacy and public policy assignments. We regulatory participate in industry wide consultations and submit our views. For instance, recently we submitted an advocacy paper with the SEBI to argue for a new category of funds i.e., captive funds pooling vehicles. The work involved multi-jurisdictional research, and after multiple rounds of discussions with the SEBI convincing other leading family offices to being co-signatories to the advocacy paper.

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?

Traditionally, GCs primarily focused on compliance and legal advisory roles. However, as Indian businesses become more internationalised and complex, GCs are increasingly expected to navigate the regulatory framework of multiple jurisdictions seamlessly and simultaneously work as strategic partners in executive decision-making. They are now involved in high-level discussions regarding mergers, acquisitions, and product launches, thus transitioning from a support function to a central role in business strategy execution.

The modern GC should view themselves as legal and regulatory risk managers, and an integral part of the business team. Such a mindset brings a sense of ownership and aligns incentives – which is essential to deliver cutting edge solutions. In the investment industry this translates into helping the fund get great deals across the line with sufficient safeguards.

For example, at PI, I along with my team advice and support investment team for their investments in USA and Singapore as well. Further, on the investment side, my role also involves helping the investment team with risk assessment right from the stage of the investment sub-committee review.