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In the wake of increasingly strict quotas on migrant labour, retailers in Singapore have had to change their approach to finding and recruiting staff. For McDonald’s regional general counsel, Faz Hussen, helping human resources to find new ways of incentivising and retaining employees is just one example of how the GC role has changed. Faz, who has also given seminars on boardroom strategies, emphasises that his role goes far beyond legal and compliance. ‘[As GC] you need to be someone who helps grow the business as opposed to just advising’, says Faz. ‘Certain ideologies are ingrained but you keep working at bringing your own ideas because in the end it’s the only way you can add value to the role. It’s important to pitch the other side to the business management team’. This is not to say that more traditional issues to do with legal and compliance are not important, however. When Faz became general counsel and director of government relations and communications for McDonald’s Singapore in 2015, one of his first contributions was to restructure compliance and due diligence processes to ensure they were up to the exacting standards of the McDonald’s group. More recently he helped McDonald’s to sell its franchise rights for restaurants in Singapore and Malaysia to Saudi Arabia-based Reza Group, helping to deliver McDonald’s regional strategy of moving away from direct ownership in Asia.