About

Patrick von Arx joined Compass Group (Schweiz) – the Swiss subsidiary of the world’s largest food services company – in 2018, after over 15 years as an attorney. As lead of the legal department, he took steps to transform it to an efficient service provider fully immersed in the business and considered a true partner by the company’s internal stakeholders.

At Compass Group Switzerland, the legal department acts not only as legal advisory body, but as a business enabler. The duality of this function helps the company to generate and retain businesses, and manage all legal risks that arise in the value creation chain of doing business. Patrick firmly believes legal departments should not act as naysayers – rather, they should support the company in every conceivable way to help it thrive in a legally compliant manner, always focusing on ensuring alignment with business ethics and protection of the company’s reputation.

Patrick streamlined the legal department’s processes to make them more efficient and customer centric. He created legal templates to be used by the internal stakeholders and fully digitised the contract approval, signing and storage process – the company particularly benefitted from this digitalisation during the past crisis, which forced many managers to work remotely.

In parallel to helping the business thrive, Patrick concentrates on ensuring the company’s legal compliance in all respects. To this end, he hired an additional member of the legal department to oversee data protection compliance. This focus on compliance also helps the company to live up to the high standards of European and Swiss data protection law.

Given the vital role of the legal department within the organisation, von Arx also serves on the managing director’s leadership team and helps to shape and implement the company’s overall business strategy. In addition, he also acts as company secretary. Given his achievements, he has been elected as member of the supervisory board of the German business of Compass Group.

Patrick von Arx says that “being a general counsel to a company is one of the most interesting and diversified positions a lawyer can take up”. However, he also points out that success in the role of in-house counsel lies in thinking and acting as both lawyers and businesspeople. From lived experience, Patrick also believes that every in-house counsel wishing to reach the pinnacle of their career should complete a supplementary general management education