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?

In 2023, we saw a year of incredible technological innovation in our company and our industry. This is why we developed our Responsible Technology Principles to guide how we build and deploy AI and other technologies with our values in mind. As the primary architect of our Principles, I was keen to ensure that these Principles — and the practices, processes and rituals that underpin them — empower and equip teams across our company with “self-serve” ways to consider and assess potential ethical and responsible AI considerations. Our aim was to take a cross-functional approach (both within and outside of our legal team) to raise awareness of these issues and ways to minimise them, while also avoiding adding friction or duplication to existing legal processes.

In addition, as a company that makes tools specifically designed to help teams collaborate, I helped to ensure that we used our own tools, processes, and language to do so, making our approach recognisably tied to our company’s values and ways of working.

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

As part of Atlassian’s public policy team, we are and have been very focused on forward-looking regulatory developments across a wide variety of technology policy areas. This includes AI, cybersecurity, privacy and data protection, competition and consumer protection, electronic surveillance and sustainability, and there has been no shortage of developments in those areas in the past 12 months! In our work, we are responsible for reviewing, assessing, and contextualising these proposals, understanding their implications for our company and our industry, and ensuring that our unique voice is heard in these policy debates, including through public submissions and consultation processes.

What is a cause, business related or otherwise, that you care about, and why?

I have long been interested in the intersection of technology, policy, ethics, and the law, and especially where gaps — or, more often, perceived gaps — arise between them. I strongly believe in the positive role that law and regulation can play in facilitating responsible innovation, particularly when coupled with a diverse mix of policy tools and collaborative, inclusive policy design.

While technology is an important, often beneficial (and inescapable) tool, that does not mean that it is neutral — so the way that we as humans interact with, respond to and place guardrails around it is just as important as the details of any particular technology product or system. I feel very grateful to be able to contribute to these processes as part of my role.