About

Japanese-owned international technology company Konica Minolta is particularly known for its many printer and copier lines for the business and industrial market. Kai Mielke has been with the company since 2010, starting as a “one man show”, as the company had no prior in-house legal function before. Mielke describes how his role has grown in recent years: ‘In 2014 the in-house legal function of Konica Minolta Germany and Konica Minolta Europe were merged and I took over the responsibility for the new department, which had to take care of the legal needs of the European parent company and the support of all 28 European subsidiaries of Konica Minolta’. Mielke prizes a collaborative approach above all, and uses his authority to bring team members together to achieve shared goals. ‘Although I am the head of legal for Konica Minolta Germany and Europe’, Mielke says, ‘I always refused to take over the classical role of a superior in relation to my team members. I regard myself more as a legal professional amongst others and expect and encourage all my colleagues to act and decide independently and take over responsibility on their own; this has been hugely successful’. This collaborative approach is continued with Mielke’s innovative yearly legal conference for all internal legal colleagues worldwide, that is ‘frequently visited by Russian, American and Japanese counsel’, for instance. Alongside this, he has taken great efforts to remove any bureaucracy that would prevent other business units from seeing the legal function as an ‘easily accessible service provider for the whole company’. He explains: ‘when I took over the merged legal department, my first measure was to repeal a policy which provided certain pre-conditions and processes for the involvement of the legal department in predefined issues. Nowadays there are no hurdles, no restrictions and no predefined issues’.