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According to Katie Lenko Hiess, general counsel and chief operating officer of SGH, ‘The in-house legal role is becoming much broader in scope. It is important that lawyers develop an understanding of the businesses they support in order to assess how to make internal legal advice more valuable. This requires an intimate understanding of and buy-in to what the organisation values and its strategy, as well as the courage to be a handbrake when needed’. She has prioritised this way of thinking when building a supportive and integrated legal function. Notable projects that she mentions include securing the dual authorisation of fund manager AP Moller Capital and contributing to the creation of the Africa Infrastructure Fund as an ‘enormous’ undertaking. ‘Negotiating the funds’ first prospective investment’, she goes on, ‘as co-investor in the proposed takeover of a listed Zambian energy company with CDC, the British government’s development fund, was both exhausting and rewarding’. More recently, having just returned from an extremely successful roadshow in Asia where SGH showcased its security token offering, SGHX, Hiess reports being ‘overwhelmed with positive feedback and assurance that SGH has created something which appeals to investors, satisfies regulatory requirements and takes a firm step towards bridging the gap between traditional and digital assets’. This project also required major innovations and technical expertise from Hiess. ‘Creating the SGHX security token has been a far from linear process’, she explains. ‘Over the last nine months we have explored emerging and existing regulatory frameworks across a number of jurisdictions, working with blockchain advisors, emerging digital exchanges and institutional digital asset custodians to design and create a fully secured, tradeable and financially attractive security token offering – one of the largest in the market with a target private placement raise of up to US$100m. It is exciting to play a role in bringing best practice to a frontier space’.