How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organization’s resilience?

Managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises requires, in principle, close, open, and honest alignment within the company’s management team to ensure a clear, shared understanding of the company’s strategy, enabling its implementation as a true business partner. It is crucial to take a holistic approach to the situation or problem to assess not only the legal parameters but also other business-relevant considerations, with the aim of properly addressing the situation or problem in collaboration with the relevant stakeholders.

Regarding legal strategy within the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience, I strongly support investing in people, not only within the legal team but across the organisation, alongside enhancing organisational or corporate culture, as I firmly believe that this unites people, inspires productivity, and encourages resilience. Furthermore, by adopting a proactive approach in our business operations, we strive to identify and mitigate risks or seize opportunities, utilising technology and cooperating with our business partners with an agile mindset.

What measures has your company taken to embed sustainability practices into its core business operations, and how does the role of the general counsel contribute to driving and ensuring sustainable practices within the company?

Siemens, as a leading technology company, supports customers worldwide in becoming more competitive, resilient, and, above all, more sustainable. Our portfolio enables a positive impact on both the planet and society. Siemens has integrated its sustainability strategy into our business activities, technology roadmap, investment decisions, operations, and governance. We empower our customers to accelerate their sustainability goals across three key impact areas: decarbonisation and energy efficiency, resource efficiency and circularity, and people-centricity and societal impact. Our commitment goes beyond the sustainability impact of our portfolio. We define our environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ambitions within our decarbonisation, ethics, governance, resource efficiency, equity, and employability (DEGREE) sustainability framework – a 360-degree approach that reflects our core sustainability values. DEGREE is built on six fields of action with clear priorities that drive sustainability and are dynamic and continuously evolving:

Decarbonisation: Supporting the 1.5°C target to combat global warming; Ethics: Fostering a culture of trust, adhering to ethical standards, and handling data with care; Governance: Applying state-of-the-art systems for effective and responsible business conduct; Resource efficiency: Achieving circularity and dematerialisation; Equity: Promoting diversity, inclusion, and community development to create a sense of belonging; Employability: Enabling our people to remain resilient and relevant in a constantly changing environment.

Legal and compliance is the cornerstone of ethics, particularly in the context of increasingly critical business situations where ethical and responsible action, and the consistent application of our ethical principles in all decisions, are expected by external stakeholders such as customers, investors, and society. Furthermore, the General Counsel, as a true business partner to Siemens’ operations, is actively involved, both directly and indirectly, in concrete actions to address Siemens’ ESG ambitions and priorities.