Denisha Anbu started her legal career at international law firm King & Wood Mallesons practicing there for 14 years predominately in the telecommunications, media and technology sector and worked in each of the firm’s Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney offices. She began her first in-house role as a senior legal counsel at Sydney Water Corporation in 2012 after experiencing this type of role on secondments. She was appointed general counsel of the company in June 2015 following an external recruitment campaign, and additionally corporate secretary in July 2016, and most recently acting as the general manager of people and corporate services for five months, from December 2017 to April 2018, with executive responsibility for legal, corporate secretariat, people and culture (HR), business centre (shared services), risk, safety and wellbeing and internal audit.

During this time, Anbu acted as the lead lawyer managing the organisation’s legal risk during a high-profile ICAC enquiry in 2014, where the organisation was supporting an investigation into a third party (and its officers) by the state anti-corruption body. About this investigation, Anbu explains, ‘this was my first foray into public inquiries and built my confidence as an in-house lawyer as I realised that my specialist focus as a private practice lawyer did not define my future legal practice areas’. She also implemented a regular training program within the business on topical legal and governance issues, as well as conducting lessons learnt in workshops held after the completion of large matters and maintaining a suite of key contract templates for Sydney Water. Successfully merging the legal and corporate secretariat teams into one blended team, Anbu implemented efficiencies and streamlining processes into the business and the legal team now has the opportunity to expand its corporate governance experience. In addition, the business is afforded additional time to prepare board papers as the review of the papers from a legal and governance perspective are combined. Anbu has given advice on packaging claims made by wet wipes manufacturers as part of Sydney Water’s award winning “Keep Wipes Out of Pipes” campaign, and providing support to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in their proceedings against manufacturers for misleading and deceptive conduct.

She also worked on the finalising of a design, build, operate and maintenance contract with a technology partner for a new customer billing system and integrated technology platform for Sydney Water, a New South Wales government project of state significance with a project value of approximately US$300m. Additionally, she worked on extending the build, own and operation partnership for the Prospect Water Filtration Plant (one of the world’s largest water filtration plants) for another 20 years, with a contract value of approximately US$1bn. This plant provides safe drinking water for up to 85% of Sydney’s population, proving Anbu’s demonstrable impact as an exceptional in-house lawyer within the sector.