About

Gabriella Waldhauser is a senior corporate counsel at The Absolut Company (TAC) based in Stockholm, one of six brand companies within Pernod Ricard, the world’s second-largest spirits group. First joining TAC in 2009, Waldhauser was previously responsible for anti-counterfeiting work in China and travelled there several times to oversee matters directly, proving her commitment to ensuring the company is safeguarded in its various international markets. Moreover, she supported the marketing and innovation teams for global brands such as Absolut, Malibu and Kahlua, and provided IP advice during the disposal of parts of the company to a competitor. In 2012, she assumed the role of global head of IP, directly managing a team of five employees and undertaking all strategic IP work and all legal matters relating to the promotion, protection and enforcement of TAC´s brands throughout the world. Of this period, she states that she became equipped with ‘extensive international experience [which] made me very focused and efficient in my decision making and leadership skills’. Also during her time as global head of IP, Waldhauser managed several product redesign projects for TAC’s flagship Absolut, Malibu and Kahlua brands, as well as working closely with the marketing and innovation teams on a large number of different activations and global campaigns to ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations and industry standards. She identifies that TAC has ‘invested a substantial amount of money and time in marketing its brands throughout the years, meaning that you have to be very creative and proactive from an IP perspective when supporting the marketing teams at TAC’. This role also included drafting and negotiating a broad variety of commercial contracts including agency, artist, talent, sponsorship and trademark licence agreements including with a number of notable music artists. Displaying the comprehensive scope of her work in the IP field, Waldhauser states that she has been responsible for ‘approximately 400 IP proceedings on a global basis’ since joining the company. More recently, Waldhauser has broadened into a more general role, which has included work in the steering committee ‘supporting management with more direct strategic legal IP advice, more work on commercial contracts such as supply agreements’, and has also worked in the company’s New York office to broaden her international experience. Her vast experience within TAC has allowed to her to propose and implement a number of managerial changes and innovations within the legal department, and she explains how she has instilled a strategy of ‘assessing and mitigating legal risk while driving business performance by providing pragmatic business solutions and practical legal strategies’. This has had a noticeable effect, having ‘significantly lowered the overall legal costs of the company’, further illustrating Waldhauser’s ability to, in her own words, have ‘a good understanding of the business and giving legal advice that is focused on finding solutions and using creativity to overcome roadblocks’.