Team size: ~50

What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have recently been involved in?

Honeywell is transforming from an industrial company into a software-industrial and Honeywell Connected Enterprises (“HCE”), the business that I am the general counsel of, is leading the charge. In my role I own the legal strategy and execution for our business model transformation including from on-prem software and services to SaaS.

As part of this I have: (i) built a new organisation from the ground up growing my team from three to ~50 over the past few years as we have built out HCE as a new business; (ii) put in place new global contracting frameworks driving deal velocity and intelligent risk closing various software, SaaS and services transactions and including Honeywell’s highest ever value standalone software deal in Q1 2022; (iii) closed and integrated multiple M&A deals, go to market partnerships and joint ventures; (iv) enabled successful launch of multiple brand-new SaaS and software offerings building a new product legal, compliance and risk review process (covering data governance, privacy, third party risk, IP, and regulatory) for our software development process; (v) led complex technology partnerships, (we have ongoing partnerships with Microsoft, and SAP) and closed many in-bound sourcing transactions; and (vi) overseen a global compliance and risk program including crisis management (I am the HCE crisis management leader), business resiliency, disputes and litigation, export/import, code of conduct, anti-bribery, sanctions, geo-political risk, and Covid response.

As we enter the next decade, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry? 

To be successful as an in-house general counsel, you need to have a deep understanding of the business across all aspects including the business models, customers, supply base, and financial levers. The better your understanding of the business the more you will be able to give strategic business and legal advice and enable value creation, risk management and problem solving. You also need to be able to have the courage to speak up, be transparent and call people out to push for what is right, both ethically and commercially.

What are some of the main legislative or regulatory changes that have impacted you?

As a SaaS focused business enterprise providing solutions that enable intelligent operations for industrial companies, we are the custodian of various categories of regulated and highly sensitive data of our customers including in relation to personal data, healthcare, critical infrastructure, and government data. There is ever growing complex web of global regulation focused on data transfer and localisation, critical infrastructure and security that is a challenge to stay on top of. We have built out our own product legal and regulatory expertise and have created a customised process to ensure that our offerings comply with, and enable our customers’ compliance with, this regulation including building our own data compliance map and country guides tailored to our specific use cases, customer regulatory requirements and offerings.