About

Hessa Al-Twaijri emphasises the need for in-house lawyers to get to grips with the upper management of their businesses as much as possible: ‘The more you engage with top management and senior management, the more you understand what the business needs and what it is about in order to protect it, and how to ensure that we achieve our goals’. It is this approach, prizing a thorough understanding of company objectives and strategy, which laid the foundations for her extremely successful career to date. Beginning her in-house career in 1993 with Kuwait National Petroleum Company, by 2007 she had risen to the rank of team leader for projects and operations at the hugely prestigious oil company before moving over to Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC). She now fulfils the role of legal manager and secretary of the board, providing the benefit of her immense experience to high-level executive meetings focusing on company strategy. On the cooperation between the legal function and upper management, Al-Twaijri says, ‘we have a fantastic relationship, communicating with each other and deliberating with them on specific cases that are of particular importance to the company’. She has been particularly successful in closing M&A transactions since at PIC, and has also supported a number of highly important joint ventures for the company, creating real added value in the process. Given her collaborative approach towards legal work, Al-Twaijri believes greater community between in-house lawyers in the Middle East through dedicated professional organisations would be a great help to all corporate counsel in the region. ‘Within the Middle East in-house legal world, we often don’t know each other as there are few forums that allows to share knowledge. We need to communicate with other businesses, in the same way that doctors or engineers do through their professional organisations’, Al-Twaijri advises.