Vimla Parbhoo is the general manager for legal services and compliance for global automobile giant BMW in South Africa and the sub-Saharan African region, where she utilises 16 years of commercial experience across a broad range of disciplines. Despite only joining the company in May 2017, Parbhoo is implementing changes within the legal function to better manage BMW’s legal risk in the region.

‘Streamlining the legal department by creating efficiencies , further delineating roles of the team, optimising current resources, building capacity in house and reducing external legal costs will have a huge impact on the company’, she explains. Prior to her current role, Parbhoo was the executive head of the legal and company secretarial function of the Scaw Metals Group, a leading South Africa-based integrated steel maker. Reflecting on her appointment to this position as a career highlight, Parbhoo says ‘the opportunity to manage and lead a team is challenging but extremely rewarding’.

Whilst at Scaw Metals Group, she was involved in its SEP process which involved the Industrial Development Corporate (IDC) seeking to introduce new equity partners within the Group. Another of her previous significant in-house roles was being the company secretary and senior legal counsel at Siemens for four years where she was responsible for the entire group company secretariat function. ‘I was able to engage with executive committee members, board directors and high level stakeholders in the parent company and be exposed to key issues that I would not have otherwise been exposed to in my then current role’, she explains. Prior to Siemens, Parbhoo served as a legal adviser to large companies in the region such as Sentech, Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), First Rand and Nedbank.