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By setting up the legal department, Susanne Berens Olsson has moved Göteborg Energi AB away from handling legal matters through a decentralised method of using external law firms, at high cost, to internalising as many matters as possible. Together with her team, Berens Olsson established a structure for knowledge management and created a legal strategy for performing work that is proactive, adds business-value and is cost efficient both in-house and when working with external law firms. The department is now welcomed by the company as an early partner at the start of all business negotiations, projects and high value transactions. Western Sweden’s leading energy company, Göteborg Energi AB, has been through a significant transformation during the last couple of years and the legal department has played a key role in the process. The work has included the divestment of several companies and other assets, mergers between subsidiaries, reorganisation of labour and the companies within the group, outsourcing IT operations and forming a new strategy for company governance. In her career, Berens Olsson has been committed to ensuring the legal department is a strong contributor to the group, reaching its targets from both a legal and financial perspective. ‘The legal department’s role is to use law in order to achieve company’s goals and minimising the risks along the way’.