About

Team size: 18

Major legal advisers: Accura, DLA Piper, Kennedys, Latham & Watkins

In 2018, Steven Lewis was not planning on staying at CBRE Global Workplace Solutions beyond the one-year contract that brought him in to try and turn around a struggling legal function. He agreed to stay on, however, provided he could attempt to fulfil a hefty ambition within the 18-strong legal team.

‘I said I’d stay on permanently if I could create an ambitious strategy and long-term performance goals for the legal team,’ says Lewis. ‘Large parts of the legal profession are incredibly resistant to change, especially when it comes to technology. They are stuck in 1992 listening to Simply Red on a CD player, but now we live in the Spotify age and I want my technology to be the very best.’

His first role in-house on a permanent basis, he has now been head of legal for EMEA for two years at the US commercial real estate firm’s workspace division, which provides facilities management, project management, advisory and transaction services to property occupiers. By this point Lewis had already garnered extensive experience of short-term contracting in company legal teams, including Barclays, Belron International and, more recently, the University of Law.

With some cut-throat restructuring decisions to make in the legal team to improve operations – Lewis describes the first six months as a ‘tougher gig than I was warned it would be’ – he has since turned his attention towards embedding a contract management system (CMS) into the legal team to help it process the company’s high deal turnover. ‘We’ve had double-digit growth for many years, which presents all sorts of problems for support staff, but with planning and strategy it’s amazing what you can achieve. If you add little 1% changes together, it adds up year-on-year and then without realising it you’re in a different world of efficiencies and performance.’

Lewis works closely with the commercial team on many deals and contracts. Some stretch to more than 1,000 pages and are worth millions of pounds, with the AI-driven CMS improving the company’s handling of them. The result was to partner with tech provider Exigent, which needed the backing of a large corporate to raise its profile. ‘I was happy to be the guinea pig for CBRE and now this system removes the tyranny of the hunch. It also means legal and commercial can now produce data reports for the business.’

Lewis is described by the chief executive of innovation consultancy Hyperscale Group, Derek Southall, as ‘one of the best operators out there’. ‘He’s great at pioneering new models of delivery for contracts and has a visionary approach to technology. The company doesn’t shout that loudly but has completely remodelled how its contracts are delivered.’

DLA Piper partner Richard Norman adds: ‘He is very forward-thinking, dynamic and focused. He is keen to ensure his team is the best in-house team in Europe, which has required him to restructure and reorganise it entirely.’