Team size: + 125

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

The Covid-19 pandemic continued throughout 2022 as the greatest leadership challenge for our global legal team. Many colleagues based in APAC and, in particular China, remained isolated from the rest of the world. This, of course, put on-going strain on the physical and mental health of our local colleagues for a prolonged period of time. Once the travel restrictions towards the end of last year were lifted, the waves of Covid-19 infection that caught team members was quite immediate and necessitated mobilisation of resources in the team to support the strain faced by local teams.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

It is very important to have a defined strategy that outlines the approach to be followed by risk takers in mitigating material legal risks. What becomes necessary for successful strategy implementation is a risk mitigation framework which defines how to sustainably mitigate legal risks and shows how the risk mitigation maturity can be improved over time. We have defined a core set of legal risk mitigation KPIs that has been key to demonstrating the effectiveness of the legal strategy and a strong measurement basis for the legal teams’ overall contribution to the promotion of loss mitigation.

What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry?

In my opinion, it starts with breadth and diversity of experience. I have also found that the most successful in-house lawyers possess a range of qualities including curiosity, desire to bring about positive outcomes, interest in the development of talent, progressive thinking when it comes to anticipating the skills that will be needed for future success within their teams and willingness to invest in that skills development, experience with crisis management and problem solving coupled with deep rooted business acumen.