Part of the Engie Group since 2015, Solairedirect is France’s foremost renewable energy company, providing solar and other green energy solutions to a domestic and international market; India, South Africa and Chile are all countries which the country has a major foothold in. Previously a successful private practice lawyer – becoming particularly valued for his corporate and M&A work – Olivier Kodjo has worked at Solairedirect since 2011, during which time he has worked on transactions aimed at establishing solar power plants internationally, negotiated the company’s path through challenging new regulations and has provided the benefit of his considerable commercial acumen to the company’s executive management.

While building up this impressive body of work, Kodjo has developed an understanding of what aspiring in-house counsel should aim for in order to take their abilities to the next level: ‘If I had a piece of advice for in-house lawyers, particularly in-house lawyers who are in earlier stages of their careers, it would be for them to make sure they maintain a legal mind-set and legal analytical approach to their work. In a nutshell, that they keep thinking as trained lawyers. What I have noticed, especially in very innovative business environments, is that the temptation can be great for younger lawyers to lose focus of their primary role at the bonfire of “business first”.

Whilst it is key for in-house lawyers to be perceived by the senior management as contributing to the overall growth and profit generation of the company, it is also their role to show added value by doing what they have been trained and hired to do. They should always challenge the legal feasibility of innovative concepts and business orientation of the company as opposed turning into project managers, contract managers or, in worse cases, mere scribes’.