Team size: 300 members

What are the projects that you are most proud of working on over the past 12 months?

In terms of M&A: The acquisition of our US competitor Infinera to create a global optical networks vendor to help our customers to upgrade their networks for the AI era. At the same time, we announced the sale of our sub-sea cable business to the French Government just days before the French snap elections in June 2024 to complete our business portfolio transformation in this part of the business. Our legal and compliance led the negotiations, due diligence, transaction structuring, tender offer filings, corporate resolutions, share issuances, and tens of regulatory approvals around the globe in a challenging regulatory environment. Our legal and compliance team managed also the complex interdependencies between the two projects enabling these transactions to close in eight andsix months, respectively, from their signing allowing the realisation of the target business benefits to start very fast.

On the AI side: Setting up the AI governance framework for responsible adoption of artificial intelligence in our operations, products and services enabling connectivity to billions of people and devices around the global. Legal, Compliance & Sustainability team has lead this work together with our Strategy and Technology organisation where Hundreds of various AI use cases have been processed through our AI governance process addressing the related ethical, regulatory, intellectual property and security aspects. Our AI governance includes three line of defences from the business unit levels all the way to the representatives of our Group Leadership team under the oversight of tour Board of Directors in a setup which has received very positive feedback from our institutional investors. We have also signed the EU AI Act to ensure we are in the frontline with other companies in sharing the learnings and best practices for the adoption of EU AI Act fostering both responsible use of AI and cutting-edge innovation.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Our function’s role is broader than just legal aspects to ensure Nokia’s resilience. Given our close integration to the business, seats in all leadership teams and presence in 50 countries around the globe, Legal, Compliance & Sustainability is often the team that the broader organisation is looking at for guidance to ensure we navigate through the crisis as a one company. Naturally, legal, regulatory and ethical considerations are key considerations as we do that but our strength as a function is to effectively and in agile way factor in 360 aspects of a disruptions to a global company like us, be it pandemic, global supply disruptions, war in Europe or geopolitical disruptions affecting our operations.

What do you derive the most satisfaction from in your work?

Maybe two things. One of the best parts of being a general counsel is the “General”: being exposed to so many areas of law with the different talented individuals in one’s own organisation. For me the most frequent activities include legal work relating to strategic growth areas of our business, M&A, commercial deals, IPR, litigation, regulatory tsunami, Board work, ESG/sustainability, AI, people and culture. Another aspect where I derive a huge amount of satisfaction is how Chief Legal Officer is positioned in our company as a key contributor to strategic discussions: a big part of my work as a Group Leadership Team member does not relate to legal and compliance at all but is rather about acting as a strategic partner to the business, CEO and Board relating to their key considerations.

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

I was fortunate in the early years of my career to have really big challenges thrown at me. Few examples: As 2nd year associate in a law firm, I ended being a lead associate of €5bn IPO and holding the pen for its global prospectus in project which was my first initial public offering. And when I started as an in-house counsel, my very first litigation was a border dispute between Latin American in the International Court of Justice regarding a request to dismantle our over US$1bn greenfield pulp mill project. Also, within months of getting responsibility for our India legal at Nokia, we received a US$3bn tax claim from local authorities in India. In all of these, I was lucky to work with great managers and colleagues to mitigate my juniority but these projects have shaped me as professional and strengthen my trust in my capabilities in matters which initially seem overwhelming and well beyond my comfort area.

What do you think are the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel to possess?

By far important attribute is to have deep understanding in how can you enable the development and execution of the strategy and other business priorities of your company. Naturally, we do have a big amount “invisible” work in legal and compliance functions that is needed for our companies to stay compliant and mitigate legal risks. But if you want to have an impact, you have to understand what are the strategic priorities of your business stakeholders and how can you help them to achieve those (naturally in responsible and sustainable manner). You will be surprised about how many ways legal and compliance teams can help in developing and executing of the business strategies, and once you do so, educate also your own teams on these priorities and impact of their work. This way you will always have momentum behind your function’s priorities and eventually also the budget discussions with your business stakeholders become easier as you are seen increasingly as a business enabler instead of an overhead cost.