About

Described as ‘highly competent’ with ‘excellent leadership skills’ Nina Macpherson has led Ericsson’s global legal affairs division as chief legal officer since January 2011. Macpherson joined Ericsson in 1996 as group general counsel, before becoming vice president, corporate governance and antitrust law in 1999, until 2007. During this time she worked on some of the company’s most significant work including guiding the company and its subsidiaries in transitioning to the Euro currency and the merger that created Sony Ericsson. Macpherson leads a 181-strong legal team and has initiated strategic job rotations in order to facilitate a broad experience base in the team.‘We are taking a number of initiatives to reduce external costs, including a better governance of law firms and insourcing of work. The cross border governance and cooperation has also rapidly increased’. Like other general counsel of multinational companies Macpherson has faced challenges along the way, including cyber security threats and dealing with crisis situations, such as major catastrophes like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2013. She highlights that it is also difficult ‘doing business and protecting the employees in times of war and terrorism and implementing proper anti-corruption training’. During her time at Ericsson, she has drawn particular note for her role in a large new issue of restructured shares, won a number of important patent disputes and dealt with highly complex mergers and acquisitions. Humble in her approach, she says, ‘the biggest achievements are not possible for me to talk about, but, of course being appointed to CLO was a tremendous honour’.