Team size: 50 

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

Subject to regulatory approval, we agreed the sale of our US and Bermuda businesses and completed the sale of our Singapore brokerage entity. We have also completed several internal corporate restructuring projects. 

What do you see as an opportunity or risk over the next six months? 

We are working in an ever-increasingly complex regulatory environment so as a legal team, we need to be proactive in ensuring we stay ahead of this – whether by engaging with the regulators through consultations, or internally, ensuring we are advising our business partners on what is applicable to our business and how to implement the changes driven by regulation.  

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense? 

As a team, we developed a litigation and complaints monitoring tool which has enabled us to work more seamlessly with the client services team on the front end. As well as logging any complaints and ensuring they are being handled appropriately, the system also assists on the back end by ensuring we are joined up with the finance team, creating consistency on how the risk is assessed financially–and provisioned if required. Ensuring the tool would be used by multiple functions was key to its success and has made it now an integral part of the ways of working within our business.  

As a general counsel, how do you anticipate and prepare for potential legal and regulatory challenges that may arise, particularly in light of emerging technologies and evolving business landscapes? 

As a business that operates in 20 markets, we must stay on top of potential legal and regulatory changes in multiple jurisdictions. In anticipating upcoming changes, we do a monthly horizon scanning exercise in each of these countries and ensure we are regularly sharing information on new developments with the business and other key stakeholders. 

In your role, how do you balance the need to protect the organisation’s interests today while also considering legal implications and opportunities that may arise in the future?   

Legal risk management is at the core of what we do, but I always want to ensure that the legal team is viewed as enablers too. It’s a balancing act and one in which I try to ensure I ask the right questions so I can really understand the business well enough to make those judgement calls when needed, and in turn help foster that culture of legal risk partnering with the business in my team. Our goal is to be part of driving and supporting the business while also keeping the company safe.