About

Smita Priyadarshini was working for Perot Systems in 2009 when it was acquired by Dell and she was elevated soon thereafter to Dell’s senior management team. Presently, she serves as the lead commercial lawyer for Dell in the Asia Pacific, Japan and China (APJC) region and also supports several regional profiles. Her team is spread across various locations in APJC and helps support a gamut of functions for the Dell legal team. Priyadarshini was a pioneer in the inception of a global team within Dell, going by the name “Global CLaaSS”. Global CLaaSS was based on hiring legal talent locally in India to provide support to the various international businesses of Dell. Convinced by the success of this model, other regions are following suit, which Priyadarshini identifies ‘brings about huge cost savings to the company and also, harnesses on the expertise and skill set of the local talent pool. Currently, I am focused on promoting and expanding the team, which is thriving due to the team’s strong work ethic in [delivering] quality performance each time, every time’. As a leader Priyadarshini has brought in a significant change to the working model of the team, by diversifying the work undertaken by the team to multiple business units across Dell. To implement the change, she handpicked the best lawyers with relevant international qualifications and experience to ensure that the team could provide services across boundaries. One of most impressive innovations created in the last two years has been the introduction of the concept of “hybrid resources” within the team. This concept was envisaged to provide a workable solution to reduce the budget constraints of regional legal teams for hiring additional legal resources especially during the peak business time. In this model, a legal resource having relevant expertise in multiple jurisdictions is used as a “hybrid resource” to provide legal support to multiple regions on a shared cost basis. This is not only monetarily beneficial but brings in additional benefits of keeping the regional teams up-and-running around the clock, leading to increased customer satisfaction due to quick turnarounds. Priyadarshini and her team have been involved in several multi-million complex transactions; each one of which has been unique and challenging. Helping the company win business and increase its revenue whilst at the same time ensuring that it is legally protected has been, ‘my overarching driving force’, Priyadarshini explains. She identifies that, ‘the most important “deal” to date (in the real form of the word) has been the inception, growth and success of Global CLaaSS. In addition, CLaaSS team members have worked on many significant transactions for the business. In general, the team has provided end-to-end support on various key projects and initiatives of varied nature’.