About

Neal Sawatzke has earned a reputation as a trusted partner to senior executives by leveraging deep expertise in understanding and managing legal and business risk to deliver commercial solutions to complex problems. He brings to Cargill, years of global experience in agriculture, food, energy, trading and risk management across a multitude of legal areas. While at Cargill he has had considerable business impact and the privilege to sit on business leadership teams and act not simply as counsel but as part of the business team with wide-ranging roles and having a material impact on the success of the business. Sawatzke states that building teams throughout his career has been a highlight and a great learning opportunity: ‘Making the shift from being extremely individualist, to learning how to build and engage truly world-class teams requires giving up control and building trust, but pays huge dividends’. This realisation has led him to consistently build excellent legal teams across multiple domains, and deliver high value results. Sawatzke is constantly improving how they operate as a function, developing the business of running a good size law function. ‘That involves the right level of process and centralisation, modernising how we work and looking for the efficiencies that will unlock our team’s time allowing each of us to focus on creating value for the business’. He has successfully evolved the function from being legal advisors to business leaders, which comes from accumulating a deep understanding of how the business works to create value and find solutions for the business.