About

Telstra is Australia’s largest telecommunications company and has a longstanding international business with a focus on the Asia Pacific region. Today, it has approximately 3,500 employees based in 20 countries outside of Australia, with a significant headcount in Asia, providing services to thousands of business, government, carrier and over-the-top (OTT) customers. Headed by Lauren Ellison who serves as legal business partner Asia and EMEA, Telstra’s award winning Hong Kong legal team consists of four lawyers and an executive assistant and is supported by the broader team which includes seven additional lawyers who are based in Singapore and Australia. During the past 12 months, the legal team has moved away from a functional support model, with teams supporting different business units within Telstra, to a practice area model with a leaner business partnering function. ‘This model gives us greater focus on deliverables which are critical to the success of the company and allows us to create expertise in key areas, better scale our resources up and down to meet demand as it arises, and take an enterprise-wide view of risk and work prioritisation. This was also designed to move us to a more agile and project-based way of working’, Ellison explains. Highly regarded in the industry, the team plays an integral part in helping the business achieve success in various areas, such as executing strategic infrastructure investments including recent subsea cable investments; securing a number of significant strategically important enterprise, wholesale and OTT sales opportunities in the region while navigating a heavily regulated environment; managing complex joint ventures in China, India, Korea and the Philippines; and advising on complex transactions involving China, including the implementation of the new cybersecurity law. Talking about the strategy of hiring and retaining legal talent, Ellison states, ‘We truly invest in our people, ensuring that they are challenged, engaged and supported. We create tailored quarterly development plans for each lawyer to ensure that not only are they working on diverse and interesting projects to deliver on key business priorities and our broader legal strategy but also importantly, personal goals. We have in place a robust training programme including for example, opportunities to develop soft skills like agile, coaching and leadership skills; a comprehensive knowledge management platform together with a transparent appraisal process with a culture of continuous feedback – these elements seek to ensure that development is always kept at the core’. The team embraces legal technology development and the opportunities it provides, ‘which we leverage to engage and collaborate with each other as well as with the business to manage and prioritise our work and to deliver differently. Identifying and implementing legal technology projects has been an opportunity for us to learn new skills including not only the technology adoption piece but the importance of change management skills’, says Ellison.