How have you attempted to bring the legal department closer to your business colleagues? 

I have aimed to embed a mindset of speed and agility within the Diageo legal team to allow the business to seize opportunities and make decisions at pace. As a global legal team of 200+ lawyers, we have collectively agreed that our mission is to “Clear the Path” for sustainable growth and help seize the commercial opportunities before us. The behaviours on which we focus as a team are embodied within our strategic acronym – “LEAP”, which means that we deliver upon our mission by focusing on how we “Lead, Enable, Accelerate and Protect”. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our business colleagues and balance the need to make our brands fit for modern consumers whilst protecting their long-established heritages which, in some cases such as Guinness and Johnnie Walker, date back hundreds of years.

As a member of the Diageo Ireland executive team, part of my role is designing the legal team to be fit for the future. I am introducing a new concept of “Legal Business Partners (LBP)”, with each lawyer in the team appointed as a dedicated legal advisor to a specific business team within Diageo Ireland. LBPs will work side-by-side with their team on specific projects to support them achieving their results. This will drive greater alignment of legal goals with business goals. With an LBP involved from the start and throughout a particular project, they will be able to advise in real time throughout the project and pick up issues before they become serious. This is based on skills for the future and will move the legal team from providing a legal support service to being trusted advisers and valued business partners: not just advising, but collaborating and ultimately, innovating.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

Having come from a technology background, I wanted the legal team to form an integral part of Diageo’s digital transformation agenda by adopting a “digital-first” mindset. My ambition is to automate and self-serve wherever possible, so that the lawyers are not doing work which technology can do instead.

The legal team led a transformative contract management project, resulting in paper contracts being replaced with digital contracts. Not only has this created significant efficiencies across the value chain for commercial teams and customers, allowing them to generate legally compliant contracts in minutes, it also allows the legal team to focus their time and expertise on more strategic issues and complex deal structures. The project has enabled Diageo Ireland sales teams to automatically generate 90% of all customer contracts. The legal team members have adopted a growth mindset and are spearheading a digital project to enhance the digital solution using AI to automate 100% of customer contracts.

What are some of the main trends in the industry sector you work in in Ireland?

Diageo operates in a complex, competitive and fast-moving environment. In the context of growing demand for non-alcohol alternatives and where advertising restrictions for alcohol products are becomingly increasingly complex under the Public Health Alcohol Act, 2018 (PHAA), Diageo Ireland’s legal team plays a crucial role in ensuring that our products (both alcohol and non-alcohol) have a route to market which is compliant with applicable laws and regulations.

Diageo Ireland has been a leader in providing non-alcohol alternatives to consumers in recent years. Since the launch of Guinness 0.0 in 2021, the legal team has been integral in advising on the roll out of Guinness 0.0 in draught to over 1,000 pubs across IOI; new advertising campaigns for Guinness 0.0; new advertising campaigns and new product designs for our portfolio of non-alcohol brands, including Gordons 0.0.

We are also at the forefront of Diageo Ireland’s ESG strategy, which is encapsulated by Society 2030: Spirit of Progress. This is Diageo’s global strategy to pioneer grain to glass sustainability, promote positive drinking and champion inclusion and diversity (I&D). Diageo has 25 goals across these three pillars, which are linked to the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Goals. The legal team has been at the heart of the strategic evolution of ESG within Diageo.

The team has also played an instrumental role in Diageo’s plan to build a new carbon-neutral brewery in Kildare, the first in Ireland, and the re-development of St. James’ Gate into a new “Guinness Quarter”, including new retail and hospitality areas to reinvigorate the city and give back to the wider community.