About

Nilfisk, dealing in innovative commercial cleaning products, has sales entities in 45 countries, dealers in over 70 countries and manufacturing facilities in seven countries, so the need for in-house counsel is clear. Lena Ernlund Malamberg, the head of intellectual property legal, stands out in the in-house sector as ‘very successfully and has a key role in the global handling of IP’, for Nilfisk. Having completed her bar exam, she worked as an attorney-at-law at Gorrissen Federspiel law firm before being recruited by Nilfisk in June 2014 ‘as part of an overall strategy of professionalising and optimising the Nilfisk business on a global scale and across all levels’. Ernlund Malmberg works hard to guarantee that legal IP protection of Nelfisk products is initiated at the earliest steps of development, as well as handing and negotiating contracts and dispute resolutions for the company. Within a few months of joining the company Ernlund Malmberg’s proactive manner resulted in the initiation of comprehensive strategy updates that resulted in the formation of the Global Research & Development unit. ‘The making of the global R&D function also had a great influence on my job, extending my area of legal commercial responsibility to embrace all product lines of the Nilfisk group in terms of IP legal related matters’. Her abundance of experience dealing with strategy has amounted to significant changes within the legal department, such as the introduction of IP safeguarding gate models, portfolio clean-up of previous M&A transactions and the creation of a global IP board to integrate communication across all the levels and across many functions of the company. She tells us that ‘I enjoy and highly appreciate the opportunity to apply legal knowledge and legal assistance on a broader scale, taking the traditional legal counsel role to another level’, further highlighting her capabilities to utilise her legal skill set to assist the commercial aspects of the business and to together progress the IP activities of Nilfisk to new horizons.