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

In my opinion, the most significant case our legal team has recently been involved in is Heineken’s investment in production in the Asia Pacific region, with the goal of becoming the first international brewer in Taiwan.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most? Which have you found most useful in your legal team?

I feel that technological advancements around automation, not of legal advice, but of the more manual things lawyers work on, will have a huge positive impact on in-house counsel teams. Things such as automated handling of requests from other people throughout the business, tools to allow for the automation of contract creation and standard contract review, contract life cycle management and automating of required work around e-discovery, among others. This will free up time for lawyers to take on more value-adding work and partnering with business stakeholders.

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

In-house lawyers should first and foremost listen to the needs of their business partners and provide practical advice in non-legalese. We should also seek to connect with our stakeholders to find common ground and have no fear of arguing, debating, and confrontation in general. By using the hamburger model of connect-confront-connect, we will be able to deepen the relationship with our business partners.