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?

Cable & Wireless Communications operates in 24 Caribbean countries separated by the beautiful, cerulean waters of the Caribbean Sea. The legal team is dispersed across multiple islands.

In the past five years the region battled major hurricanes, the COVID-19 pandemic, earthquakes and a volcanic eruption. In these times of instability and crisis, it was collaboration and our purpose of connecting communities, changing lives that guided us through. Given our physical separation, it was and is essential that we connect, communicate and collaborate not only amongst ourselves but with our internal stakeholders. We achieved this through the creation of Legal Tiger Teams which focused on driving both transformational business improvements as well as operational excellence, while fostering intra-Legal collaboration across the markets and developing talent within our team.

We view ourselves as trusted strategic partners of the business and for us to add real value, our legal priorities must be integrated with the business’ strategic objectives and overarching purpose. We are here to “Support – Enable – Amplify – Protect” the business. Our team recently received the OnCon Top 10 Corporate Counsel Award, a recognition that holds special significance as it was voted by our peers. It highlighted our substantial impact on the organisation and the broader industry. It acknowledges our contributions to the business through thought leadership, innovation, and operational excellence. To me, this is a testament to our success in aligning our strategy with the business’s strategic goals. At Cable & Wireless, our legal team leads with conviction, strength and passion as trusted partners for the business.

In your opinion, what are the main trends affecting your work now (these can be legal, political, economic or business-based)?

At the forefront of our priorities are AI and cybersecurity. Like many organisations, we are focused on harnessing AI to maximise its potential across the company while remaining vigilant about the ethical and business integrity challenges it presents. AI offers in-house legal teams a tremendous opportunity to move beyond traditional contract management systems. Instead of merely storing contracts, we can leverage contract intelligence to extract actionable insights and unlock significant value for the business. On the cybersecurity front, the threat landscape continues to evolve rapidly. As cyber risks increase, it is imperative for Legal to partner closely with the business to ensure robust incident preparation and response strategies. Our role extends beyond legal oversight to actively shaping risk management frameworks that protect both our data and our reputation.

What strategic priorities are guiding your legal team into 2025?

Looking forward to 2025, we will continue to Support – Enable – Amplify – Protect the business. We are guided by the principle of being both a Value Driver and a Risk Protector. This dual role is central to our strategy and reflects our commitment to not only safeguarding the company but also actively contributing to its growth and strategic objectives to ensure long term success. Our key strategic priorities for 2025 are: supporting the business needle movers and priorities: The business’ strategic priorities lie at the heart of our legal strategic priorities. Through sustained engagement and collaboration with our internal stakeholders we ensure that we are in sync with the business; enhancing operational efficiency: Leveraging AI within the Legal function not only boosts our efficiency and frees up resources for more strategic activities but also provides valuable contract intelligence to help us tell our story; and driving business value. Key to creating value is understanding the business, building relationships with our business partners and looking into the horizon to understand and prepare for future developments.