Team size: Six
How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?
The key component of this question is strategy. As a legal team, a great deal of what we do requires management and foresight. This ensures that we are able to plan in advance as best as possible to deal with our mandate, as opposed to ‘fighting fires’. Aligning with the members of my team during regular intervals in a financial year on legal, regulatory and business trends allows us to be better prepared and include any possible budgetary requirements (outside of litigation). Due to my role in the organisation, there are formal and informal structures in place which allow me and my team to integrate into business planning, strategy, sales and governance sessions. Amidst turbulent times in the World economy, rapid regulatory changes, product crisis, sales instability and pressure to perform, accepting that their will be instability and many crisis is the constant we accept. Alignment between ourselves as a legal team (locally and abroad) that has strong bonds and has been commended as one of the highest performing functions (support services), as well as our business stakeholders allows us to remain resilient, strong and focused. The organisation has many interconnected functions such as IT development, Aftersales, Retailers, Marketing, Communications, Sales, Financial Services and Compliance. I ensure that there is adequate expertise and knowledge within my team to support these stakeholders and advise accordingly.
What strategies do you employ to ensure the successful digital transformation of a legal department while maintaining compliance with South Africa’s data protection laws?
Technology and AI play a vital role in bridging gaps between business and legal teams, fostering collaboration and efficiency. In the context of enhancing legal operations, adopting technology, establishing self-service options for non-contentious legal matters, and utilising legal research tools, alerts, and trusted AI solutions have become critical areas of growth in the legal field. These advancements enable organizations to streamline low-value, repetitive tasks, freeing up resources to focus on strategic initiatives that align with the company’s objectives.
Whilst leveraging available technology and software already available would bring about efficiencies and transformation within the legal department, costs play a factor in enhancing or acquiring tools which do not exist. Access to digital law and legal research tools are one of the key strategies I employ to ensue that the department has access to up-to-date case law, regulations and laws. Within multinational companies it is key to have knowledge and understanding of not only local but cross-border applicable data privacy laws and policies.
The legal department has access to a vast array of data due to the scope of our work. We are therefore strict on complying with the relevant data and document retention laws and policies as well as utilising dedicated technologies solely for the legal team in terms of matter management and document and retention. These tools also provide analysis capability and enable us to create reports, monitor and track matters as well as spend. Introducing and new projects, digital tools and processes also usually require a data privacy impact assessment to be performed to ensure that we remain or become compliant. Any new digital tools acquired would have to have the relevant security certifications in line with company policy and data protection legislation. Developing and/or updating relevant usage manuals and providing training to gain the most out of the said technology is critical. All user manuals are integrated with Protection of Personal Information secure handling practices (including relevant access controls and encryptions) as well as GDPR (as applicable). There is routine monitoring and assessment of compliance and process effectiveness (which includes the local compliance teams). All stakeholders are engaged as required, including IT, data privacy officers and employees to ensure successful adoption. A key project undertaken by myself and my legal department in 2024 was the Digitisation of the Corporate Document repository across 6 of our company entities. Through this project, our entire company secretarial repository was indexed, stored and archived in compliance with the Companies Act, the Protection of Personal Information Act and applicable legal and policy records retention requirements. This provides a phenomenal view of the Companies records, directors, shares as well as gaps for rectification (phase two of the project). The entire company secretarial and corporate function has transformed into a digital format capable of being analysed and updated by applicable users to ensure continued compliance.
How do you manage and motivate your legal team to ensure high performance and professional growth?
I motivate my team by engaging as a ‘servant leader’ as best as the circumstances allow for. This ensures that my team trusts that I am supportive of them and in supporting them that they are still able to learn and grow in order to remain motivated. Building relationships, understanding our strengths, areas of development and ‘superpowers’ allow a team of high performers to build resilience and deliver quality advise to stakeholders within the business whilst proactively managing risk. We have an open mindset in terms of feedback and are able to have crucial conversations in a mature way. This also includes the more junior managers. I encourage my legal team to build their own brands and grow their relationships within the company. I ensure that they showcase their projects and work efforts as well as offer ideas for innovative solutions. Whilst we are extremely busy on a wide range of topics, we have dedicated check-ins and make time for an annual legal strategy and recap session to remind ourselves and track our key projects and achieve our targets. I ensure that I recognise achievements no matter the impact and offer support when needed when matters are not proceeding on track. We maintain professionalism and high ethical standards whilst occasionally enjoying fun activities (such as padel, tennis and sushi night) from time to time to keep the spirit and comradery up. Everyone is empowered as a leader in their own right and is responsible for their own portfolios which builds confidence, leadership and accountability skills. This includes members of my team presenting at board level to directors and at other sub-committees. Budget permitting (if required) I also offer chances for skills development which are not only on legal topics. We do understand the responsibility that the legal team has within such a dynamic organisation and industry, however I also ensure that I keep a close eye on well being to prevent burn-out, demotivation and illness. Maintaining one’s health is a mantra I regularly share with the team, being an excellent way in which to manage stress and heavy workloads. In the end we are there for each other, we laugh together, we debate vigorously and enjoy what we do as in-house counsel. Having a consistent, resilient leader who is there when needed and makes a tough work environment challenging but fair and positive at the same time, makes a great difference in driving individuals to perform better and improve themselves. I encourage asking questions to me as well as business stakeholders to gain a better overall understanding of the problem statement. Collaboration with our colleagues in Germany and other countries is absolutely vital to growth and high performance. My team also appreciate that stakeholder management is half the battle won.