Formerly a transaction specialist at Lagos-based law firm Templars, Vivian Osayande has been achieving major success as an in-house lawyer for Novartis since early 2013. Here, she operated as head of legal for the company’s Africa cluster until January 2017, when her role was expanded to include Asia Pacific and the Middle East also. Osayande is extremely highly regarded at Novartis, having received personal recognition to go along with her professional achievements, as she explains: ’A huge highlight for me was winning the Novartis People Award back to back for the years 2015 and 2016. These came in addition to other external awards, but were the most important to me because I could see how important it was to be oneself and practice collaboration’. Osayande also mentions another highlight, namely successfully tackling the challenge of moving in-house.

‘My first in-house role was as head of legal for Africa’, she explains. ‘It was a newly-created role and I was tasked with building the team at the same time as driving the business forward. This was challenging because Africa was profiled as high risk, and I had the task of creating processes that ensured compliance but also ensured that we were able to provide access to our innovative medicines to patients across the region’. During her time as head of legal for the Africa cluster and in her current role, Osayande had an important role in the restructure of the department, which has paid dividends since.

‘The key change was to separate the compliance function from the legal function’ she explains, ‘and this really paid off. In my current role, the key change has been to empower the cluster lawyers, to ensure that the support required from the region is minimal. We have also now built centres of excellence in clusters where knowledge is shared, templates are stored centrally and best practice is discussed to reduce the bureaucracy of relying on the region’.