About

Can you briefly explain how the legal team is structured, highlighting key individuals and their role within the department?

The Mahindra Group legal team, comprising of 47 lawyers, provides assistance for the legal aspects of 22 key business verticals and corporate service teams of Mahindra & Mahindra, and about 50 companies of the Mahindra Group. The spread of legal matters, handled by the group legal team, broadly falls within five categories, widely ranging from M&As, litigation, general documentation and advisory, to IPR and compliance. Aside from general counsel Naveen Raju, the key individuals in the Mahindra Group legal team include three business legal heads, namely, Girish Gadgil (Automotive Division), Rajashree Ansurkar (Farm Equipment Division), Farida Desai (group companies division), as well as four functional legal heads namely Ms. Dipti Gandhi (litigation), Mr. Chistopher Krishnamoorthy (M&As), Shilpa Joshi (IPR) and Mr. Santanu Sinha (Compliance). The Mahindra Group legal team has undergone a significant rehaul in terms of team strength and approach to legal matters over the last year. An increase in lawyers’ strength and band width has resulted not only in reducing dependence on external resources and costs but also in improving efficiency and creating in-house capability to provide wholesome service. The group legal team also has a unique combination of experienced as well as budding lawyers, which culminates into innovative yet proficient legal advice for the clients. The camaraderie between group legal team members is admirable, thereby creating a culture of mutual trust and respect that facilitates efficient interactions in cross functional teams.

Can you describe some of the challenges the legal team faces by working for a diverse and international Indian company and how it overcomes these? How does the team ensure it remains a true business partner to the company and is greatly valued by and integrated with its business?

The Mahindra Group is a federation of companies with varied business interests in over twenty different industries. It has operations in over 100 countries across the globe. The group legal team assists the business teams with transactions in these different industries and jurisdictions. Given that the group legal team assists the business teams with their domestic transactions relating to the different industries as well as the transactions in various jurisdictions, some of the key challenges for the team include dealing with the complexity of the multi-jurisdictional regulations, keeping pace with the rapid onslaught of regulatory changes, the changes in the approach of the regulators and navigating through territorial sanctions which are, at times, conflicting with each other. The group legal team approaches all challenges with a business-friendly outlook. The lawyers in the team are trained to service specific industries and are also encouraged to take-up opportunities in different work-spaces. The team-members keep themselves abreast of the relevant regulatory changes and also participate in various upskilling programmes for acquiring new skills. Where required, the lawyers identify capable external advisors and work closely with them to provide the business a tailored solution to ensure that the business or transaction can be undertaken smoothly. Further, the team’s structure is business-friendly and is conceived for creating value and strategic advantage for the business, customer satisfaction and ultimately to ensure that the team remains a true business partner to the organisation. In order to implement an innovative organisational structure that provides centralised expertise in specific practice areas alongside a high-quality business sector focused legal support, a hybrid organization with cross-functional teams of business and practice area specialists, has been created within the department, thereby leveraging in-house capabilities to the fullest extent to achieve its stated vision statement, which is: “We will: (i) fully integrate with and be valued by our businesses; (ii) employ the best of skills, systems and processes; and (iii) be better than the best amongst in-house legal departments.” Presently there are separate teams of in-house lawyers, who are decentralized and integrated with the business teams (viz. automotive, farm-agri and group companies) at the operational level and supported by the centralized specialist teams bolstering functional competencies like M&A, litigation, compliance and IPRs. The team’s able lawyers are well-led by senior in-house counsels of more than 20 years’ experience in the profession. In terms of professional experience, the legal team is a classic hybrid of law-firm experts to veteran in-house professionals with varied industry exposure in Indian and global markets. This hybrid team structure has led to streamlining of processes, reduction of turnaround time and simplified access for the businesses to receive tailor-made and solution-based legal expertise marking a significant shift from traditional in-house reliance on external resources. Though the group legal team is based out of the corporate office, business legal team members are embedded with the businesses that they support at plant locations, and in relevant regions, which promises and provides a more effective and efficient service to the businesses. With a total of seven teams, the group legal also attempts at encouraging and facilitating rotation for its members, who have devoted their time and expertise to a specific team for at least two years, to another team, based on their desire, capabilities and availability at the requisite position.

The aforesaid blended-structure helps the business teams make quick decisions with the legal team members actively participating throughout the transactions. This quick decision-making gives the business teams the much-needed competitive advantage desired in the present-day market dynamics where the nature of the transactions are, at times, really complex.

What will be the main focus for the organisation in the next 12 months and how does the team intend to assist with this?

In line with the market dynamics, the organisation will continue to explore opportunities in different jurisdictions. With the US, UK, EU and international organisations like UN, levying financial, trade related sanctions against various countries as a part of their diplomatic efforts, the team is likely to face challenges in navigating through regulations which may, at times, conflict with each other. Since we have exposure to both the US and EU markets, the team will pro-actively ensure the business teams understand the group wide implications of the violation of the applicable sanctions and adequate measures are taken to safeguard organisational interests and avoid adverse consequences.

Apart from legal matters, has the team worked on other company initiatives? (e.g. compliance, diversity, ethics, corporate social responsibility etc.) What sets Mahindra Group legal team apart is not only the unique composition with diversity of capabilities that can cater to all business requirements in key economic industries, but its readiness to utilize advanced technological solutions to take effectiveness to higher level. To complement strategic decisions, the team has independently formulated and adapted multiple new cognitive computing applications to assist in-house lawyers manage the magnitude of work and efficiently deal with established processes.