About

Anthony Lannie, general counsel at Apache Canada, oversees 42 employees in the legal department, of whom 28 are lawyers. Apache’s legal department prides itself on its world-class team of attorneys and support professionals, and Lannie has had an instrumental role in diversity initiatives and upholding the utmost standard of quality within his team. Thanks to Lannie, the legal department is currently comprised of 43% women and 24% minorities. Of its new hires since (and including) 2011, 72% have been women and 28% have been minorities. Lannie has used a variety of creative approaches to recruiting and retention as part of this shift; his team of lawyers are energetic, young attorneys recruited from the best law firms and are widely known within the company as leaders in their respective areas. He also ‘actively works to maintain a low profile behind the CEOs he supports and the team he showcases’. Lannie is one of a very small number of major-company GCs whose careers include senior-level business, finance, and legal roles. His management of the legal department reflects this breadth. When discussing the highlights of his career he explains the following events: ‘The sale of $17bn worth of assets in the 24 months immediately preceding the current drop in oil prices from $100 per barrel to less than half that amount, the handling of which was core to Apache’s ability to manage the current price environment’. In addition, during Lannie’s tenure, the Apache legal team has settled major litigation under very favourable terms. Lannie has also tried major litigation to successful outcomes and has managed the purchasing of more than $20bn in assets. He has been instrumental to the seamless handling of the retirement of the company’s founder and the retirement of its first non-founder CEO, and has handled the company’s exits from two countries and from multiple distinct business units. Many of these strategic shifts included major domestic and international acquisitions and divestitures, which were facilitated by Lannie’s embedding of legal staff within every region and across subject matter boundaries.