About

Datamatics is a global IT and business process outsourcing organisation, which works with a number of Fortune 500 Companies globally. Divya Kumat joined the company in 2004 as senior vice president legal and company secretary. Kumat’s previous experience includes working as a company secretary and legal head in the automobile and hotel sectors, as well as senior legal analyst for Computer Sciences Corporation, a US IT multinational. In the past 12 years at Datamatics, Kumat has established a legal department that is a strong support partner for all units and projects within the company, ensuring that the routine activities are governed by defined processes. The team has been recognised through internal company awards for their quick turnaround time and high-quality performance. With a significant focus on being a business enabler along with monitoring governance, Kumat believes her main goal is to adopt a solution-focused approach whenever possible: ‘The agility and turnaround time in responding to the “C-level”, and other business heads, by the legal team has enabled the business to respond promptly to all contractual and legal matters. Mediating with aggrieved employees, advising the chairman and CEO on legal matters and legal due diligence, are some of the other activities that have increased the effectiveness of this department, impacting the business positively’, she says. Equally significant is the role that she plays in M&A transactions and other in-organic initiatives of the company; this has been a particular focus of the company in the last five years and something that Kumat has worked to facilitate smoothly. ‘Our chairman is a visionary, the CEO a strategist and the CFO and I are aligned to execution’, she explains. The senior management, besides consulting with her on important issues, also proactively seek her personal opinion and professional legal advice. Well known in the Indian in-house market, Kumat has won countless individual and industry awards ranging from female general counsel of the year in 2014 to an outstanding achievement award in 2013 for a unique intellectual property right battle in the US which protected the company’s brand name.