What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have been involved in over the past year?

Last year I led the restructuring of various legal entities in APAC as legal counsel. This meant covering a wide range of countries, which are divergent in their operations and have various regulatory and legal framework, regular interaction with local lawyers, consultants and government authorities, exploring our horizon of operations under that and continuing to be legally compliant. Leading a vast cross functional team across countries required setting expectations, timelines, roles and responsibilities. To ensure smooth transition we set up regular updates and meetings to monitor our progress and address any setback with course correction. Our work helped in ensuring an effective execution of strategy during transformation leading to business growth.

Which political, economic or regulatory changes have impacted your work the most in the past year?

I think one of the important adaptation in legal area which has long lasting political or economic impact is the regulatory changes with reference to digitisation in healthcare. Organisations across the world are developing innovative digital applications to actively promote their service to support patients and communities. The trend of digitisation in healthcare has continued post covid. As counsel it becomes even important to keep track on evolving regulations in different countries and it increases our responsibilities to ensure no infringement or reach occurs in this highly regulated field. As legal professionals we welcome the trend but we need to be vigilant towards various legislation especially evolving data privacy and protection and safety of patients and lives.

India is an economy that is rapidly growing and expected to be one of the powerhouses of the 21st Century. How do you see the role of GCs there changing in this environment?

The positive growth in the Indian economy has created excitement in corporate India as well. And there is hunger to grow business and be part of the economic boom. Accordingly, the importance of GC has evolved significantly. There is widespread awareness that any organisational decision has both corporate and reputational implications. Legal teams are an integral part of today’s business environment and involved in business or personnel decisions. This is actually an opportunity for in-house legal professionals. Today, corporate lawyers need to be skilled at law, regulatory and compliance but also need to learn the strategy of the organisation and upskill themselves to have the business acumen which assists in growth. In a nutshell, a GC has larger responsibility to actively get involved in major decisions to support business, align with strategy, protect reputation and be compliant.