Could you tell us a bit about your significant successes in your role?

In my time at Nearmap, I have had the privilege of experiencing significant success and exposure to a multitude of legal issues in a short space of time. I have been heavily relied on by senior management and executives at Nearmap to drive legal matters globally and provide strategic guidance on commercial outcomes. In particular, outside of general BAU, navigating the regulatory intricacies of Covid and driving Nearmap’s expansion in all regions, I have been involved in complex matters to date such as the acquisition of a key piece of intellectual property, performing a capital raise of approximately US$100m, shielded and responded against a short seller attack, defended against and continue to defend against a patent litigation in the US and currently working through the potential acquisition of Nearmap by Thoma Bravo (a private equity company).

In your opinion, what are the qualities and skills needed to form a strong legal team?

Having had different experiences in different types of teams, both in-house and professional services firms, an effective and strong legal team must have an established common purpose, direction and set of values and those directives need to relate back to company goals and values. A strong legal team, and each individual on that team, must have high standards for themselves to support the overall risk profile of the company. Each member needs to bring creativity, an openness to collaborate and drive solutions, but also continue to challenge the status quo. One of the key attributes that any strong legal team must have is a great culture of continuous learning and development, a good balance between IQ and EQ, so that key decision makers of the organisation are reliant on you as a trusted advisor on all matters.

What is the biggest risk to your industry or organisation and how are you contributing to prepare your organisation for this?

The biggest risk to most industries including Nearmap’s tech stream is the growing concerns around cyber security and management of potential disasters that impact the organisation, its people, and its customers and users. As a technology company, this topic has been at the forefront, and we have continued to work towards having appropriate governance frameworks and security measures to protect all forms of data. I am directly part of the cyber security group as the legal lead to help shape our security measures and to effectively map out and manage the data we hold. I am also the co-chair to the disaster resilience committee with the mandate to operate and administer the business continuity framework and foster and support a business continuity and risk management culture.

What challenges have you overcome to get to the position you are in today?

One of the biggest challenges was navigating and supporting the growth in the organisation with limited funds, support, and a relatively lean team. In order to achieve this, we needed to have quite streamlined processes and ways of engagement, and we were able to utilise existing platforms to aid in this process, in addition to lawyers working overtime, through different time zones and working on cross-border deals for a large portion of the time.