Team size: 12 

Major legal advisers: DLA Piper, Sherman & Sterling, Al Monther 

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? 

We are currently using a cloud-based document management and cooperation system called Fabasoft that our company acquired for our engineers to cooperate with external partners to create a fully digital corporate office for the Middle East. The additional costs were moderate (roughly $18,000 per annum for the entire Middle East) and the new solution will allow (a) the entire Middle East legal team to have access to all corporate documents online, which gives us more flexibility to manage attrition and reduces the attrition-related risks, (b) the cooperation with our external shareholders in one virtual place to prepare, share and comment on resolutions, and (c) the sharing of such documentation in a safe manner (watermarks, temporary sharing, download restrictions) with other third parties like auditors and authorities.  

How do you balance your responsibilities as a general counsel with your involvement in dispute resolution and M&A matters? 

M&A matters are handled by our global team, so I am not materially involved in those. As for dispute resolution, we try to maximise the in-house value add and involve external support only where we cannot provide the value add ourselves (mainly strategic and procedural advice, at times the firms’ drafting skills are superior to ours as well). We only work with firms who understand that and see a value in saving their time (and our costs) so they can focus on adding value to other customers. 

What measures has your company taken to embed sustainability practices into its core business operations, and how does the role of the general counsel contribute to driving and ensuring sustainable practices within the company?  

We re-worked our business travel guideline for long distance travel: remote negotiation is the fall back, we travel only if there is a specific justification for it (for example, closing out complex negotiations) and, most importantly, we leverage our global set-up to conduct negotiations (for example, if someone based out of Berlin has an upcoming negotiation in Singapore, she needs to check with the colleagues based in Singapore whether or not they can take over for the negotiation). 

How do you prioritise diversity and inclusion within your legal department, and what initiatives have you implemented to foster a more inclusive and equitable work environment?  

We must distinguish between inclusion and diversity. Inclusion is a necessity I am not willing to compromise on. This starts with ensuring the total absence of discrimination, including unequal pay and, on the constructive side, making the accommodations that each individual of the team needs to thrive. A diverse team composition, to me, is a tool to drive the performance of a legal department. The more angles we look at a problem from, the more solutions we will produce and the more likely it is we will be producing the best solution to a problem. This I ensure by a diverse hiring concept. First, we rank all candidates according to their personal, acquired skill sets (without looking at gender or ethnicity) and in a second step we re-rank according to predefined diversity criteria based on the question as to which diversity criterion would drive the team’s performance the most (for example, in a team of ten composed of eight women and two men, a male addition may most likely be  beneficial).