What technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal counsel in the future the most?

The impact of the technological advancements is two-fold — legal tech providers offer a multitude of legal platforms and digital solutions to facilitate and speed up work such as contract reviews.

The importance of our role as in-house lawyers will not decrease as a consequence of this development. These tools will offload some of the routine work, freeing up time to focus on more complex, value-adding work. If anything, such shift will make the in-house lawyer’s presence in companies increasingly valuable.

Working in a company ranked as one of the 100 most innovative companies in the world, we are also facing constant technological advancements at the core of our business. The lighting industry is currently undergoing a massive transformation as we rapidly shift into the world of digitalisation, connectivity and IOT; this shift comes with increased complexity also from a legal perspective, requiring in-house lawyers with a multi-disciplinary, highly adaptive mindset and skillset.

With constant changes, in-house lawyers must be ready to embrace with curiosity and courage the opportunity to continuously learn and adapt to the new playfield. An appetite for disruption and challenge of status quo will be key for any in-house lawyer to stay relevant and employable.

What do you feel is the best way to get more women into in-house legal leadership positions?

I am naturally all for any measures that facilitate combining a successful career with healthy family life. No employee – male or female – should have to choose between the two.

However, we must not believe that such practical measures are the only needed quick fixes to get more women into leadership positions. Such mindset presupposes that this aspect is more important to women than men. This illustrates the real issue – the need to be aware of and focus on underlying sub-conscious bias and perceptions that certain mindsets are typically male or female.

If we genuinely want to achieve gender equality and diversity on a management level, we should stop recruiting/promoting only women who have fully adopted the traditional leadership qualities and behaviours based on a male norms. We should instead pro-actively look for true diversity and hire managers with diverse personalities, mindsets and leadership styles.

To retain women in leadership positions once recruited, it is  important to create an inclusive environment where everyone is truly integrated into the organisation’s operations and everyone’s opinion is valued.

Finally, we need to encourage and empower young women early on, to take ownership of their own careers, speak up and make it known within their organisation what their goals and ambitions are to actively pursue such goals by overcoming new challenges.

In my own career, I have been fortunate to work with and for many strong, supportive and role-modelling women.