Team size: 18

Can you give an idea of the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Complete revamping of approach to IP creating a culture of innovation to support the strategic direction of the company, making commercially focused Brand Protection which, amongst other things, have an internal driver of completely rethinking the commercial T&Cs (including margin structure) towards partners, ensuring that the brand is protected in a much more commercially viable and forceful way. We are improving the business partner approach using NPS (Net Promoter Score), giving insights on performance and improvements related to each function supported by a legal business partner, supporting the main strategic initiatives of the business through a detailed understanding of the strategy and the legal team’s role in each strategic objective.

Do you have an example of a time when you have come up with an innovation that improved how your legal team functions, while avoiding any large expense?

Use of NPS to understand and address improvement areas for each legal business partner, creation of tools to visually show value creation of the team and risks related to each project in which the team is involved (communicating in colours, decision trees and bobbles to make it easier for the business to understand). Creation of a prioritisation tool shared weekly with the company to ensure alignment between the legal business partner and the business they support.

How has the increasing consciousness of climate change and sustainability affected your company and the team’s priorities?

Longevity and circularity are key strategic priorities for Bang & Olufsen. We tap into these strategic priorities by seeking optimal legal solutions to modularity, commercialisation of pre-loved products and reparability.

How has your legal team progressed on issues of diversity and inclusion (D&I), and what are the main benefits or challenges of working in a diverse environment?

The team has set specific DE&I goals focusing on all areas of the DE&I agenda, including considerations around how to best use diversity in terms of personality profiles, cultural background, gender, seniority, age and work locations. The team has also been the driver of setting up a company-wide women-only mentor programme and started a company-wide network of female leaders.

How do you suggest in-house departments build strong relationships with business partners?

Being active business partners to the teams, they support through being a member of the relevant management teams, using NPS to understand and address the need of the business and understanding their strategic objectives and priorities to be best able to support.

If you had to give advice to an aspiring in-house lawyer or general counsel, what would it be and why?

Start by getting the foundation in place (databases, processes and templates), then understand what the business needs and make sure to continue to deliver what the business needs and preferably proactively; for example, if a change of regulations enables new business opportunities then reach out to the business to explain the why and how.