About

The Raisio Group is an international company with expertise in plant-based nutrition, which produces cereal products and animal feeds. Sari Koivulehto-Mäkitalo joined Raisio in 2006, and has since been transforming the way in which the legal department cooperates and integrates with the business. She has made the legal affairs team more business-orientated, whilst balancing the need for consistency when providing services to separate business units within the group: ‘usually a member from legal affairs is participating in the management team meetings of individual business units’. During her time at Raisio, the level of merger and acquisition activity has increased significantly and several robust legal practices have been established related to procedural accuracy and efficiency. ‘Acquiring companies abroad has forced us to establish legal guidelines on how to work with subsidiaries abroad and the deployment of group compliance policies’ says Koivulehto-Mäkitalo. She has been particularly proactive as the significance of intellectual property rights issues has increased for all businesses of Raisio, which has led to her producing a group-wide list of IPR policies.