About

Novartis Global Services Centre (NGSC) was established in Dublin in 2013, operating under the Novartis Ireland organisation, providing a range of services facilitating the smooth running of the business within the region. Head of legal and compliance Kathryn Matthews leads a compact function with two non-lawyers reporting into her, all of whom are responsible for the legal and company secretarial work related to the company’s pharmaceutical activities whilst also being internal legal service providers for matters relating to their onsite clinical trials. Driving business strategy forward, the team is a collection of versatile performers that serve the business in various different ways; procurement support, the cross division of clinical trials activity, and standardisation processes across internal Novartis approval process for example. In Matthews’ own words, a huge attribute of the legal team is its ability to ‘drive change’ and act ‘pre-emptively’ to ensure this strategy and direction avoids any potential legal risk. Matthews herself is part of the wider Novartis Global Services legal team in addition to being on the site leadership team, displaying the collaborative and cooperative nature of work across business units. The team serve a unique position within the company as facilitators between departments, and often ‘bring people together who need to collaborate but maybe didn’t realise it’; for example when data privacy staff work with representatives from procurement and IT departments in the context of a transaction. Challenges for the team are closely linked with NGSC’s rapid growth. The company has seen employee numbers increase tenfold in the past two years, and the associated changes required the development of various methods to deal with the associated pressures of such a large increase of staff in a relatively short amount of time. Such internal processes were designed to achieve greater efficiencies, including training new associates (most of whom are new to Novartis) on compliance issues all whilst supporting general legal tasks like contracts, employment law and compliance to a high standard.