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

Over the past year, the majority of the legal team’s time and efforts have been devoted to supporting the continuous growth of the personal care business. Simultaneously, we have been implementing policies, procedures, best practices, and all necessary legal requirements for the company to successfully enter the pet care business with Ludos. The most challenging aspect of this process has been reaching agreements with all involved parties, ensuring that team leaders comply with the rules and legal requirements in a cost-effective manner.

Operating in several markets, both in terms of territory and product categories, has posed an ongoing challenge. This challenge has enabled the team to be viewed by stakeholders not just as a problem-solving department, but as a trusted business advisor, capable of offering guidance on harmonising the coexistence of personal care and pet care product operations within the same company. This is especially critical given the myriad of regulations and authorities involved, all while maintaining the efficiency demanded by a fast-paced company.

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?

Rather than immediately adopting new technological advances (e.g. fully automated workflows, digital signatures, AI emailing, etc.), our approach is that innovations should be simple enough for anyone to integrate into the workflow easily, while being impactful, with measurable benefits in terms of time and/or cost savings for the company.

As legal manager, one of my main responsibilities is negotiating the acquisition of several Intellectual Property Licences. It is widely known that licensors are generally reluctant to modify their global licence agreement provisions as requested by the licensee. Sometimes these modifications are required by local law or to comply with the company’s policies. Therefore, we have been developing a training programme for our marketing team to help them easily identify non-negotiable provisions in the agreements they are entering into. These may be provisions that either do not comply with the legal framework within the territory or conflict with the company’s code of conduct. Identifying these key issues at an early stage has been essential to prevent wasting the time of other valuable teams (such as finance, insurance, accounts payable, audit, production, quality, formulation, packaging, and even legal) when the initial business proposal does not meet those non-negotiable principles.

What is a cause, business-related or otherwise, that you care about, and why?

One of our primary goals as in-house counsel is to be seen as a trustworthy ally. We must commit to the highest level of transparency. No one feels comfortable working with a partner who is not fully transparent or who provides only partial information or analysis. We are aware of the impact that accurate information can have on decision-makers. As such, we advocate for initiatives that bring clarity to the facts that all stakeholders should be aware of. This is not only because Kimberly-Clark is a public company, but because transparency fundamentally changes the way a team works. When everyone understands what is at stake and the value they can bring to a solution, people feel empowered to speak up without fear of missing the bigger picture.