Team size: 27

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

Over the past year, I have been involved in several significant legal cases and transactions, particularly relating to the global expansion of our business operations in the AMEA region (Asia, Middle East, and Africa). Below is a summary of the most noteworthy projects:

Following a global acquisition, we expanded our presence in China from minimal activity to generating approximately US$60m of business. This involved incorporating companies, navigating complex Chinese regulations, and establishing a robust supply chain and distribution network.

We had limited presence in the Dubai and GCC regions but now have built a business portfolio worth around US$100m. This required structuring a legal business framework, addressing local regulations, and setting up efficient import, distribution, and supply chains across a highly diverse regulatory landscape in GCC, South Africa.

I am currently leading a team of 27 in-house lawyers, each specialising in different areas of law, to optimise their expertise for the diverse operations of DS Group of approximately 15000 crores. My leadership approach focuses on both the legal technicalities and broader business strategies, ensuring that our legal function supports business growth and efficiency across all regions.

My focus has been on delivering legal solutions that are not only compliant but also business-centric, driving efficiency, value, and strategic growth across multiple regions.

Based on your experience, what is the key to collaborating successfully with business partners?

As a group general counsel, the emphasis is on the collaborative approach strengthening and building the long-term interests with strategies which will enable and foster business and revenue growth and thereby contributing to value creation, via innovative deal structuring, international JVs, IP protection and legal strategies that drive growth.

Key drivers are the ability to navigate legal risks while aligning legal frameworks with business objectives to foster strong and productive partnerships. Goals are then achieved through business acumen, translating legal to business, balancing risk and opportunity and aligning legal advice with business strategies.

Whether it is launching a new product, entering a new market, or negotiating a major deal, we understand the business’s strategic vision and offer SME legal support and provide the legal roadmap for navigating the regulatory and compliances, integrated with business goals.

How do you motivate and manage the other members of your legal team well?

Since the last decade, I have been working professionally and personally to create a cohesive environment. As a leader, I am attuned to their needs, strengths, and challenges of each of the team members, showing empathy leading with emotional intelligence, monitoring workload distribution, fostering inclusivity and mentorship

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?

In this ever-evolving world, informed customers, aspirational investors, stakeholders, and general counsel are expected to do not only what is legal but create the capital value for the organisation and the industry they represent. General counsel are strategic business advisors often included in C-suite discussions, help shaping company policies, growth strategies, and market expansion while ensuring legal compliance and risk management. Keeping in pace, as general counsel, I have been promoting digital transformation – both progressive in terms of digitalisation and automation and remedial in terms of cyber security and DPDP. Globalisation and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) Initiatives.

Are the effects of AI on the legal world overplayed, or underplayed?

The expectation that AI will immediately boost efficiency can be unrealistic. Implementing AI requires training, fine-tuning, and significant investment in both technology and change management. Moreover, AI systems depend on data, and errors or biases in data can limit their usefulness. While AI can reduce some legal costs, particularly in high-volume tasks, it is not a magic bullet for cutting expenses across the board. Legal technologies are often expensive to deploy, and law firms or in-house teams may not see immediate cost savings. We aim to tune into the present scenario of LLM (large language module) and its blending with AI for document review, contract analysis, legal research and would keep stimulating for the higher versions of AI in legal domain.