About

Mette Kondrup Jensen is the vice president of Novo Nordisk, a company in the pharmaceutical sector, with 16 employees reporting into her. Her role extends to the legal department where she is responsible for labour and employment law in a company that has approximately 16,000 employees. Kondrup Jensen has led a team of central lawyers to increase the focus on global data and ‘handling employees’ personal data in relation to EU legislation’. She has also been personally responsible for the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme and “soft law” initiatives, ensuring that they are in adherence with the UN Global Compact and the UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights legislation. Kondrup Jensen says this has been her biggest challenge: ‘from a legal point of view the focus on being compliant with “soft law” within CSR is a huge challenge for in-house lawyers. Where you usually have a core legislation to back the arguments up, the “soft law” area much more depends on reputational damage or recognition’. Last year her team successfully implemented the Novo Nosdisk Global labour guidelines which covers employees globally, an impressive feat considering the geographies covered. Kondrup Jensen’s work is not going overlooked and she is praised by colleagues in external law firms who say ‘she possesses strong commercial intellect and takes a very business-oriented approach to legal challenges. She has a highly international mind-set and acts in a very proactive manner’.