Key team members: Alison Mitchell, general counsel, assistant company secretary, and head of donor compliance; Michelle Drury

What are the most significant cases and transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Given the nature of GOAL’s global humanitarian work, the output of our governance, legal, and compliance departments has a significant impact on the operational success of the organisation and the ability of our external stakeholders and local communities to have full confidence in us.

Recently, GOAL responded to the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and NW Syria. While GOAL has supported vulnerable communities in those countries for over 12 years, the scale of this emergency required GOAL to pivot its operations while handling an extremely busy period of commercial contracting, increased governance and donor compliance obligations, and integration of new local laws into local operations. The success of our team in delivering meaningful humanitarian aid while managing our existing workload was highly rewarding.

We are also putting a comprehensive legal case management tool in place to streamline the processing and handling of global matters. This will allow for more proactive and effective matter management and provide a secure and central repository where we can collate legal information, confidential data, and case documentation.

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

Following several significant global events that have happened in the last year, we have seen a significant increase in changing governance regulations, compliance laws, and global sanctions. New presidential decrees have necessitated legislative changes that have to be readily understood and complied with by the organisation. Given the ever-changing and unpredictable nature of this context, this will remain a constant challenge for our in-house legal team.

Has the increasing consciousness of climate change and sustainability affected your company and the team’s priorities, and if so how?

As an organisation operating globally and in some of the harshest environments in the world, we see the direct and growing impact of climate change and environmental catastrophes in the communities we serve. Separate to our global humanitarian responses, we have seen a greater engagement by external stakeholders in climate change and sustainability issues. This has included an increased focus on corporate policies that address a sustainable future, not limited to GOAL’s impact measurement and reporting obligations.