Legal team size: Approximately 450

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?

Our legal strategy is closely aligned with our business strategy, in that our department’s aspiration is to support the business’s strategy through effective risk management, driving efficiencies, continuous improvement and innovation, and providing strategic and tactical thought partnership. We view our role as more than simply doing tasks; rather, our job is to partner with and support the business, especially during times of instability or crisis. This is made possible through the exceptional talent throughout the department. When something goes wrong, I’m confident that we have the right team and process in place to effectively handle it. We have strong leaders who have earned the trust and respect of the business and are thus able to effectively manage through instability and crisis in partnership with our business leaders.

In your opinion, what are the main trends affecting your work now?

Given our close partnership with the business, the main trends affecting our work are the same issues that impact our business. We are deeply aligned with our company’s strategy and work hard to help them execute while mitigating risk and exposure. From a purely legal perspective, we are focused on increasing the quality of our work product while driving efficiencies and optimization. This means we are closely monitoring external spend and the cost of external law firms, examining and implementing new technologies, and carefully considering the impact (both good and bad) of AI.

What strategic priorities are guiding your legal team into 2025?

As we start 2025, we are guided by our aspiration toward excellence. This includes identifying and developing top talent, enhancing our legal operations function, and critically examining the ��what,” “why,” and “how” behind everything we do as a department. Put another way, we are trying to move away from the mindset that many lawyers have equating the number of hours worked or the number of projects completed with their value or success. Instead, we want our department to focus on impacting the enterprise, while at the same time having a balanced approach. The proliferation of meetings and technology to connect has created a real risk of burnout and unhealthy work-life balance. We want to ensure that our legal professionals are able to create clear boundaries and live a balanced life, while still making important contributions and a meaningful impact on the enterprise.