What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

There have been a lot of developments in case law, guidance and legislation in the EU and broader EMEA region. For an international company striving for global privacy solutions, it is hard to accommodate such variety in regulations. This also makes it more difficult to communicate complex laws to customers in an accessible way, as the DPAs require a certain level of detail. I think people forget how many processing activities a regular company has to perform to make a global service work.

Do you have an example of a time when you have come up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works that did not result in a large expense?

In these difficult economic times, we have to continually tackle priorities with a smaller amount of resources. As the business is requiring faster turnaround and more legal assistance than ever, our teams are struggling to keep up. We have encouraged the team to maintain high level tracking of the work they’re doing and indicate with stoplight colours how much time they’re spending on tasks and if they feel this is the best use of their time.

What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry?

You need to be agile and resilient. Priorities shift all the time, while regulatory guidance and updated case law takes years to regenerate. You need to be able to shift with the business while translating requirements and risks in an ever-changing and fast-moving industry.