Team size: 10

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Our team recently advised on the issuance of a Green Bond that was then the first to comply with the upcoming EU Taxonomy Regulation and the ICMA Green Bond Principles 2021. Furthermore, our team was involved in a major internal restructuring of the group in which all domestic employees were merged into one service company.

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?

The pandemic has accelerated the shift from traditional in-house legal work to agile work. To the same extent that there is constant pressure for change on our traditional business models, which are currently reinventing themselves and whose pressure for change has been intensified by the pandemic, the legal department must accompany this development and understand itself as a learning organisation that meets the changing requirements of work and reinvents itself. My role is to support my team in this development. This includes the provision of an appropriate working environment, the necessary empowerment, and correspondingly flat hierarchies to work in a self-organised manner. Furthermore, in a matrix organisation such as ours, there must be appropriate networking and regular exchange of information with the respective business units to keep up to date with current developments and to actively accompany them legally. The pandemic has also changed the way the team works together. New forms of work, such as remote or hybrid working, have become established so that the entire team no longer meets and exchanges ideas regularly in the office. Under these new conditions, it is even more important for me to ensure that the team does not drift apart and that no one is left behind. I am called upon more to seek personal exchange with my team in this working environment.

How much influence do you, as a general counsel, have on the diversity and inclusion policies of your organisation?

Diversity and inclusion measures are part of our social strategy, which our group is currently developing as part of its ESG strategy. Our company has already recognised that it cannot afford to do without diversity and inclusion measures in the current labour market and has created all possible formats in which employees can participate in implementing and developing such measures. In my role, I make a safe environment where team members feel accepted and respected and thus feel encouraged to express their opinion. In dealing with each individual, it is crucial for me to be aware of my unconscious biases and to try to reduce these implicit stereotypes.