Note: Vimla has now moved to a new role. The interview was taken at an earlier stage, and refers to the work at Tshwaledi Investments

What are the most significant cases and transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Tshwaledi Investments is a 100% black-owned investment holding group with interests in the automotive, energy, gas, insurance, hospitality, travel, health, security, property, and logistics industries. “Tshwaledi” is a Sesotho word meaning “deal maker”. The Group is entrepreneurial and diverse in its business interests – it truly lives up to its name!

Over the past year, we have been instrumental in several significant transactions, including the sale of a billion-rand business, the acquisition and development of various multi-million-rand commercial properties, and the raising of capital involving hundreds of millions of rands. My team and I are committed to the Group, embracing an “owner” mentality, which means safeguarding the Group’s interests as if they were our own. With this mindset, we have inter alia, successfully achieved a 44% reduction in litigation cases and a 64% saving in external legal costs.

How do you see the general counsel role evolving in South Africa over the next five-ten years?

I believe that general counsel will evolve from being defenders of the business to also becoming drivers of financial results. General counsel will transcend the role of helping organisations reduce costs and risks by avoiding litigation; instead, they will be expected to contribute to generating revenue.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

It is important to gain a deep understanding of the goals, risks, competitive landscape, and nuances of the business.

Do not just be strategic about legal matters; be strategic about the business, its goals, and objectives. As the legal team, we must utilise our unique and privileged position to touch every part of the business, connecting different pieces of information, analysing situations, identifying trends, and anticipating outcomes. We can ‘see around corners’ so that the business can get in front of a challenge. Furthermore, it is critical to understand what the business needs from the legal team. For example, provide solutions instead of just pointing out problems and saying no; improve turnaround times whilst maintaining quality; avoid using technical jargon; and steer clear of drafting long winded legal opinions which perhaps only fellow legal peers may find interesting – get to the point.