About

Novozymes, a company that is pioneering on industrial biotechnology, with a strong focus on enzyme production, has legal departments located across the globe. Mikkel Viltoft is the general counsel with 12 lawyers and two paralegals reporting into him and has been with the company since 2004. The Denmark based company is fast growing and operates in a complex legal regiment that leaves little room for error and it is in this environment that Viltoft thrives. Under his leadership the legal department won the 2015 corporate attorney category under the Association of Danish Company Lawyers and Kromann Reumert. The prize money was donated to the charity Lawyers Without Borders. Viltoft has introduced many changes to the legal layout at Novozymes that has allowed legal to interact with business units ultimately resulting in higher customer satisfaction. According to one recommendation ‘Mikkel Viltoft has a brilliant way of handling legal matters expediently and with a view to the commercial reality in which he operates’. Over Viltoft’s time as general counsel, the company has implemented targeted legal support to each business unit using the global legal department and they have managed to reduce the global annual legal costs as a percentage of the global sales to below the benchmark for the chemical industry. Viltoft’s in-house legal activities are complimented by one source stating that ‘Mikkel Viltoft is very rightly a highly valued asset at Novozymes, an integral part of operations’.