Team size: 10

What are the projects that you are most proud of working on over the past 12 months?

The legal team operates as the company’s strategic legal partners, who are not just protectors but also enablers of the brand’s sustainable growth. Rituals is in a hyper growth phase and we would like to mirror the business set-up. Focus areas are brand protection, including copycats and selective distribution enforcement, data and digital, including a cool project on Responsible AI (compliance and integrity). Third pillar is Real Estate (we open one store a day at the moment and build central EU warehouse). Fourth pillar is distribution and commercial, including territory development agreements in Asia: last year we opened Japan. As a team, we stand for responsible business. We support the Rituals Profit Pledge (10% of net profit is allocated to impact projects) and transition into a Large Company Regime.

What do you think are the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel to possess?

Innovative legal minds (aka entrepreneurial nerds). Our legal professionals are business savvy, entrepreneurial and have in-depth legal knowledge. Within the last nine years, the team has grown from a one-person army to a diverse group of ten lawyers, reflecting Rituals’ evolution as a company. The team has progressed from reactive problem solvers to strategic business partners. We guide with a proactive, practical approach, evaluating risks to advise the board and management with foresight and clarity. Despite our recent growth as a team, the team has maintained a close-knit and supportive environment. We even signed up to run the Amsterdam Marathon together. Go team!

What do you think is the greatest innovation you have enacted in the past year?

What’s on our mind? Responsible AI. As a legal team we have launched a Responsible AI project to set our company up for success in its AI ambition. We have started early with AI compliance and integrity to make sure we can grow hand in hand with the opportunity side of AI. By doing so, we don’t have to build a compliance framework only once all requirements from the AI Act kick in revising all AI projects. AI compliance by design!