Team size: around 25 in-house counsels all over the world (direct and indirect reports included)

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

From my perspective, we do not manage legal aspects differently in periods of instability or crisis compared to “normal” days: we need to be a genuine business partner.

For a Legal Department (and a GC!) to be effective during such times, it is essential to have established strong ties and trust with the business well in advance. Legal Department should have in-depth understanding of the business and the “real life” across the company. Failing to be a true business partner in the day-to-day operations, will make it nearly impossible to be so during periods of instability or crisis.

What may change during such periods, is the time and pressure we have to make decisions. More than ever, we need to be quick, straight to the point, able to assess risks and propose solutions to mitigate those risks promptly; in essence, we need to be impactful. This requires mobilising not only legal skills but also a range of other skills to help understand the “big picture” and the different aspects at stake.

During instability, Legal Department can often be seen as a source of stability, as the “guardian of the temple”. We need to maintain this image while remaining flexible to address business constraints, ensuring our company remains protected, compliant with applicable laws and continue to improve.

What are the most significant cases and/or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

We manage strategic litigations for the Group. Within the Group Legal Department, we play a crucial role in supporting our business units in various cross-functional legal matters, including corporate, governance, compliance and intellectual property. Given the increasing number of laws and regulations, it is important that business units’ legal teams can rely on Group experts for assistance. This is especially true for compliance and ESG topics (CSRD, CS3D, etc…) whose importance is growing. Additionally, we play a significant role in ensuring that Group procedures are well communicated and understood, and that they are adapted and customised to our business needs. To ensure that procedures are properly applied, our primary role is to draft them in a way that is closely aligned with the business.

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession in the near future, and how do you stay updated on these developments?

Among the digital evolutions, AI is undoubtedly the technology that will most significantly revolutionise our profession in the near future. The legal team continuously enhances its knowledge on this topic by participating in various training sessions, seminars and webinars to ensure we stay updated with the latest developments. Given the rapid pace of change, it is also important to share insights with our network on this subject.

Apart from all the improvements and assistance that it will bring, we must accept that the development of AI will require change management. Legal teams might perceive AI as a threat to their job. However, if well explained, I am convinced it will become evident that AI will help our teams focus on more value-added tasks, increase efficiency and save time, rather than being a threat.