About

Previously, Flemming Pristed played a central role at KMD A/S, an IT service provider for the municipalities and government of Denmark. A few of his many achievements during a decade within the IT sector, are his role in the privatisation and sale to EQT in 2008 and his work on PMO for the sale of KMD A/S to Advent International in 2012. He moved from IT to the financial sector, joining Danske Bank in 2013, where he led the legal department from a fragmented and decentralised organisation to a team which is integrated throughout the business and across geographical markets. Pristed separated compliance from legal to allow the focus to be directed towards business strategy, customer transactions and regulatory implementation projects, making legal a true partner to the business. His introduction of the Legal Risk Policy, a five-strong external law firm panel and his creation of KPIs focused on internal stakeholder satisfaction has helped progress the legal department deeper into the business’ goals and strategies, while allowing for significant reductions in the costs of external advice. He is constantly looking for pioneering protocols to epitomise the legal department and is currently in the process of concluding the Legal Strategy 2015-2020, the first ever strategy for legal at Danske Bank. As well as his operational charge, Pristed’s fantastic managerial efforts must also be considered; leading 138 in-house legal counsel and nine non-legal staff dispersed over 13 different countries. He concedes that he enjoys most ‘when my management team and the legal counsels are working together in close cooperation to achieve one common goal’. On the highlight of his career he mentions participating in the sale of Nets Holding A/S, a payment infrastructure company, in 2014, only a year after joining the company. This is coupled with his work during the aftermath of the financial crisis when Danske Bank was faced with illicit accusations for market manipulation, which were dropped under his leadership of the legal department. ‘Coming from a non-banking M&A background I would say that my biggest challenge has been to familiarise myself with the particular legal aspects of the financial industry’, and he has done so in a swift and thorough manner. Going from an external counsel at Kromann Reumert, to making meaningful contributions in the IT sector and now at his current role at Dankse Bank, Pristed’s transparent work manner, ability to comprehend new sectors swiftly and inspirational leadership all warrant their own recognition.