About

Rune Olav Pedersen, joined PGS in 2010 as general counsel and has since continually added to his responsibilities; in 2014 he also became responsible for group communication, strategic customer relations and marketing and eventually expanding his remit of responsibilities in September 2015 to include corporate development. Pedersen started his career as a junior researcher at the University of Oslo and has also served as a deputy judge in a District Court of Norway. Prior to joining PGS, Pedersen was a partner in the law firm Arntzen de Besche for more than four years. Pedersen currently leads a legal department of 22 professionals, ten of whom are lawyers. In this capacity he has made a number of fundamental changes to the legal department and how it operates within PGS. Internally he has changed the composition of the legal team so that all agreements signed by the PGS Group are reviewed by the legal department, further imposing risk mitigating rules. He has also placed a combination of senior lawyers with junior lawyers to divert to a person with competence and interest in each task. This has resulted in saving costs and an overall revitalisation of the department. Pedersen explains: ‘The legal department is today viewed as an asset to the company by all business areas while it was more viewed as a necessary evil when I arrived. I have also driven the implementation of a full-fledged modern compliance program now controlled by the compliance department with assistance and cooperation from the legal department’. Pedersen is also a non-executive director of Azimuth Ltd and deputy nonexecutive director of the Norwegian Ship Owners’ Mutual War Risk Insurance Association, further displaying his deep involvement in the industry.