Team size: Over 150

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

The renewal of our operating model was a major initiative at KONE over the last years. I very much enjoyed the challenge of redesigning the KONE Legal team to support our new organisation and ensuring that Legal remained a key business partner to the organisation.

Over the last year, me and my team have also had the privilege to work with the business on several acquisitions to help strengthen our position on key markets.

Navigating the complexities of US tariffs has also been a formidable challenge during the last months. By developing robust strategies to address the tariffs, our Legal team help ensured that additional costs could be mitigated or passed on to customers while ensuring a robust supply-chain.

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

In times of uncertainty, Legal should focus on pro-active risk management. Usually this involves staying close to the business, understanding business plans and concerns, anticipating legal problems that may arise and taking proactive action to address these. E.g. by updating contract terms to support future business models or to mitigate risks, taking pro-active collection actions against partners in risk of financial default, etc.

Naturally, all risks can never be anticipated. The Legal function also needs to be able to take prompt action when crisis hits. This requires bring together the right people quickly, making decisions, communicating clearly to all stakeholders, and taking charge when needed. Handling crisis well also allows you to raise the profile of the Legal function within the company and ensure that you have the support of top management.

Legal should also work closely with Finance, Sales, Operations, Supply Chain and other functions int the company. If there is one thing I have learned, effective collaboration is critical to ensure success when crisis hit.

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

Working with all the talented people in our Legal team is really what keeps me going! We have an excellent Legal team at KONE, and I feel privileged to be allowed to lead this team.

What is also very important to me is partnering with the business. Working hand-in-hand with business colleagues, understanding their problems, and helping to solve them, is extremely gratifying. Often the solution may also have nothing to do with the law or contracts, but about applying common sense and a legal mindset to problems.

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

Business partnering: Always coming with actionable advice to our business colleagues what to do, taking into account the business realities. Great in-house counsel need to have a point of view and lean forward. Sometimes the advice we give will not be correct, but that is OK.

Dealing with incomplete information: We will rarely have 100% certainty, but great in-house counsel still need to be able to form an opinion and advise the business what to do.

Communication skills: We need to be able to impact the organization. This requires excellent presentation and communication skills – being able to simplify and get to the point quickly.

Curiousness, willingness to learn, and a can-do-attitude are also critical, especially for younger in-house counsel who may not yet have all the experience of their more senior colleagues!