About

‘We must strive to have a deep understanding of the business, and to maintain sufficient internal competence and bandwidth to handle frequently recurring matters’, says Brian Belanger, general counsel of Swedish multinational Husqvarna. The company is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of outdoor power equipment and a leader in watering and construction products, and Belanger has developed into a driving force within the business during his tenure at the company. After gaining a decade of experience in private practice with US law firms, where he focused on corporate and M&A work, Belanger sought an experience related to his ambition of working in a truly multinational environment. Belanger’s journey at Husqvarna began in 2006 when he was assigned the role of associate general counsel for North America, based in Augusta, Georgia. Here he proved his expertise by his handling of several M&A deals for the Husqvarna Group on a worldwide basis, before undertaking the role of head of legal affairs for the Asia Pacific region. During this time he was posted on two separate assignments in Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur between 2009 and 2014, and worked on Asia-based M&A transactions whilst acting as head of Husqvarna’s Asia Pacific sales division for 11 months, encompassing ‘oversight of [approximately] 2,000 employees and full P&L responsibility’. This increase in remit displays both the reputation Belanger’s work gained amongst his peers as well as the trust in which the business places in him. Moving to Stockholm at the request of the CEO to take on the role of general counsel in 2015, Belanger’s responsibilities build on his aforementioned experience as he is in charge of all legal, compliance, insurance and risk management matters for Husqvarna worldwide. Managing a team of approximately 30 professionals around the globe with full budget responsibility, Belanger reports directly to the CEO and is a member of the company’s executive team, and also acts as the secretary to the board of directors and audit committee. In his role he has achieved a number of key objectives, most notably regarding the reduction in legal spend on the part of the business, overseeing a ‘reduction of discretionary legal spend by approximately 5% per year [and] cost-out initiatives combined with implementation of a new “legal delivery model”’. In addition to these pecuniary successes, Belanger has used his leadership skills to improve the well-being of the team, and in the last two years has ‘achieved [and] maintained [the] second highest “team satisfaction and engagement” scores of all staff and business functions’. He leads the work towards Husqvarna’s “2020 Sustainability Targets”; which include having Husqvarna as the first listed Swedish company to be certified by Science Based Targets as being compliant with the Paris/COP21 climate change agreement. Belanger has also overseen the implementation of new initiatives including an enterprise risk management programme and a new compliance improvement plan, both with ‘multi-year board approved charters and KPI’s’. Also proving he is at the forefront of current regulatory issues, he led a two year GDPR project in order to ‘achieve compliance with the EU’s GDPR, leading to creation of cross-functional “data privacy office” with all associated tools and procedures’. Belanger has evidently thrived in his current environment, explaining that one of his greatest pleasures is in the opportunities to learn and grow as a professional: ‘One of the great joys of this journey has been the opportunity to learn to speak German, Chinese and Swedish by working in those respective language environments. I consider myself a “non-typical” corporate lawyer, having a passion for non-conformity, creativity and outside-the-box thinking’. In addition to his outstanding in-house legal career, Belanger is involved in a number of other professional activities; he is a founding member of the Stockholm-based General Counsel Roundtable, a co-founder of the Shanghai In-House Forum/Roundtable and a member of the European chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel. He has also had involvements in several publications and speaking arrangements, including most recently the Nasdaq board talks “Information Disclosure and Profit Warnings” seminar in 2017 and 2018.