About

Sophie Lewis started her legal career as an associate at Baker & McKenzie, after which she was appointed as legal counsel at Carlsberg in 2012 and was promoted to legal director in 2014. The Carlsberg Group is a Danish brewing company founded in 1847 and became the fifth largest brewery in the world after merging with a Norwegian conglomerate, Orkla ASA in early 2001. Sophie has been involved in an array of commercial legal matters and was also a member of the compliance team at Carlsberg. She subsequently became head of business ethics. During her time working in the ethics role, she introduced a new system that trained and developed employees, and has driven the compliance agenda to give it a more prominent place in the company, creating a more dynamic compliance culture throughout the whole Group. When recent structural changes moved business ethics to another department, Sophie returned to commercial legal matters and now focuses her attention on ‘leading a project to standardise and improve our contracting processes which I expect will generate significant efficiency savings and a more streamlined and professional way of working’. Sophie points out that the biggest challenge of working in-house is the constant need to remain ‘business agile and being able to adapt and respond to the changing needs and focus of the business in challenging conditions’. This agility is what Sophie enjoys the most as her role has evolved and changed significantly during her time with Carlsberg, it allows her to advise on different areas of the business while learning from the various functions and departments. Most of all she enjoys ‘being close to, and considered a trusted adviser of the business understanding their challenges and finding legal solutions to best fit their needs’.