Team size: 11 

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?  

Managing legal issues through a period of instability (such as ongoing geopolitical challenges, or Kenvue’s own ongoing and significant transformation after separation from Johnson & Johnson) raises internal challenges with workload and priority, as well as our standard supplier-facing risks and challenges, as well las navigating ever-increasing external regulatory burdens, such as with ESG.  Ensuring that our legal team partners are close to the business, and have a deep understanding of that business, is essential to secure and manage alignment with business goals and strategy.  Our legal strategy is not separate from business strategy, but rather just another facet of it, driven from the same high-level corporate-wide objectives and key results. 

What measures has your company taken to embed sustainability practices into its core business operations, and how does the role of the general counsel contribute to driving and ensuring sustainable practices within the company? 

 Kenvue has recently affirmed its commitment to our “Healthy Lives Mission”, which is our environmental, social and governance strategy.  We will report again some of our initial goals from June 2024, which cover a broad spectrum of ESG topics, such as, for example, strengthening DE&I, setting targets for our reduction of scope one and two emissions by 2030 and seeking to address key suppliers’ scope three emissions.  We have also set goals for the reduction of virgin plastic in our packaging and working towards 100% recyclable packaging by 2025.  The role of the general counsel, and more widely the legal function, has a crucial role in helping the business navigate the increasingly complex external regulatory landscape, guiding senior leadership on strategy (for example, increasing external reporting requirements), and also helping our business embed significant elements of the ESG strategy with our many thousands of suppliers. 

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession in the near future, and how do you stay updated on these developments?  

Artificial intelligence seems clearly to be the most impactful emerging technology of our times.  The phenomenal pace of change and growth in capability of AI solutions, and their increasing prevalence in all aspects of business (and supplier-offerings to business), makes this a critical topic – to manage our company’s compliance with the nascent and still varying regulatory environment, assess the risks of suppliers using AI, and also to consider how to ‘lean in’ to using the technology in our own and adjacent teams and functions, where it has the potential to revolutionise how we work, and eliminate much lower value activity.  We rely on law firms, suppliers and professional associations, as well as our own technology and data function, to help understand and keep pace with developments across these different vectors.