Team size: 11

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

As a strategic internal partner and “business enabling function,” the legal and compliance team delivers a combination of excellent legal skills and sound knowledge of our business, such as in commercial transactions, lawsuits of the company as well as strategic partnerships (the collaborations as such, but also marketing questions, and service portfolio questions) and acquisitions. Strategic and corporate issues are also supported by the legal function as well as daily business operations.

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?

Due to the pandemic, the working environment for lawyers and other members of the legal and compliance team have become even more flexible. This sounds surprising, as there are few other jobs that may be performed from nearly everywhere while the results of such work can clearly be seen, nevertheless. I personally see this as a very positive development. It allows lawyers to better integrate work into their life, promotes resilience and offers personal and professional development opportunities. For me as a general counsel, this situation led to a change of my working style. Leadership in a more remote setup requires other tools to give people enough freedom, but also the support they need, while maintaining a “team spirit” for the whole function. Additional efforts are also needed to provide for team development. From a professional perspective, many additional legal topics have come up that have needed to be resolved.

How much influence do you, as a general counsel, have on the diversity and inclusion policies of your organisation?

First of all, the general counsel can – as can any other leader of an organisation – lead by example, which means to take care of diversity and inclusion in the legal and compliance organisation. With regard to diversity and inclusion policies, the general counsel can influence the direction of the overall organisation as other managers do. In addition, it should be an integral part of a compliance management system to regularly check the system’s effectiveness, for example, by performing a risk analysis and health check. Such checks should clearly show if an organisation lacks diversity and inclusion.