About

A highly ambitious and target-oriented lawyer, Robert Closner is widely recognised in Canadian in-house legal circles for his strong work ethic. Following his graduation with a J.D. qualification from Queen’s University, Closner started his career at the largest full service firm in Canada, Borden Ladner Gervais, where he practiced for two years. After that point, Closner has spent almost all of his career in-house, initially working for several different companies on a part time basis, before joining Toronto-based company, Ivernia. After three challenging years there, Closner was recruited by the global metals and mining business, Boart Longyear, where he has been working to this date. His initial responsibilities included legal support of the company’s Canadian operations, but in less than a year Closner was asked to take up some additional responsibilities for Latin America, where he had to do important rebuilding work within the structure of the company. Following a corporate restructuring that saw the division of Boart Longyear into four regions, Closner became regional general counsel initially for North America, and since 2015 for the entire Americas region. Perhaps the most significant professional challenge in Closner’s career has been to change the way in which the business of Boart Longyear perceives legal: ‘My goal has always been to make legal be viewed as a partner to the business and not as a hindrance’, he explains. ‘I’ve always thought that the more legal is viewed as a business partner, the less likely are we to have issues. If people see the legal department as being a roadblock and they are starting to try and go around the department and try to deal with issues on their own, then you only find out about issues that are of a much larger magnitude’. Apart from making important organisational improvements to his current employer, Closner has also made his mark with his work on several initiatives on the corporate side to help the business units find new avenues for revenue. In particular, Closner has worked on a few projects aiming to develop joint venture agreements with aboriginal entities in America that primarily involved working with various financial institutions to help customers with financing issues, in order to get a project under way.