About

Team size: Approximately 35

Major legal advisers: Slaughter & May, Lewis Silkin, DLA Piper

How did you assist the employees of the company get through that really difficult period of the first lockdown?

We started working on this as soon as the pandemic started abroad. As a global a retailer, we started seeing issues in China which were then causing supply issues,which very quickly became demand issues. Our business continuity team was already in full swing by January, which put us in good stead. I look after business assurance as part of my remit, which covers both our business continuity planning and health and safety This aspect was always of paramount importance.

We started mobilising and working to make sure that the whole of ASOS was supported, making sure everyone had the equipment that they needed to work from home and laying on programs of events to help. To try and maintain team connectivity and make sure that people felt supported, I played a central role as lead on our business continuity response. What was really impressive was how people were able to adapt and get used to what was an absolutely unprecedented, shocking chain of events, and continue to work effectively. In April, we had our equity raise and various other workstreams that you would never normally have thought that you could do remotely. It’s a testament to the resilience of ASOS, and to the law firms that we work with, that those projects could get completed entirely remotely and in circumstances that no one had ever been through before. It’s amazing what people can do when really needed.

We made sure that everyone had all the equipment that they needed for a home office setup and environment that would inspire them to sign up to software that they had never used before or change working habits in a way that might continue post-lockdown. In my opinion, Covid will have changed the way people work forever. But, alongside this, I do also think that nothing beats getting people together, especially when you’re needing to discuss strategy and innovation, and the creativity that comes from this is what makes ASOS tick.

We have made loads of effort to make sure that people still feel engaged and connected at all levels of the business. We make sure that everyone knows what’s happening and that they’re well communicated to at all levels. Connected to this, we have a wellness program in place with lots of different options that people can tap into depending on what support or assistance they need, and who they want to talk to. Everyone’s different so you have to make sure you have a tailored approach.

How did you adapt to the surge in orders and what were the legal implications of this?

We have a really flexible and agile approach to working which allowed us to rise to this challenge. What was really apparent was that consumer shopping habits were changing. People were no longer shopping for formal wear dresses or work wear and spending much more on casual categories like sneakers, face and body products. The biggest challenge really was pivoting in terms of the stock that we were selling because of that demand change.

In terms of the volumes, we have flexible ways of working with all of our suppliers because we have to flex throughout the year under all circumstances. It meant our customers can get hold of stuff when the shops are closed and being able to purchase like this means that we do think Covid will have caused a permanent change.

In the future, we’ll have fast track to channel shift, so volumes will go back into brick and mortar stores. With that said, there will still be a mass of people who hadn’t shopped online before the pandemic and have got used to it because of the circumstances. We are in a really transitional moment for retail and it’ll be very interesting to see what the future holds.

Moving onto the biggest transactions and litigations that you’ve been involved in last year, one of the biggest ones is the acquisition of Topshop and other Acadia brands. How did that come about?

There were huge alignments between the ASOS customer demographic and the customer demographics of those brands, so it really was a natural fit for us. There were issues with them over the years certainly in terms of under investment and things like that, but we think we can bring them into our stable, make them find a new home on our website and reinvigorate those brands again.

When the Brexit transition agreement was happening, did you see that your role within the company was in greater demand? Did you find yourself explaining the legalities of things to people more regularly than you normally would?

Our response to things like that always has to be cross-functional, because the impact is felt right across the business. Soon after the referendum, we set up a steering group that met consistently all the way through the process to really understand and map out all of the challenges that might come to bear and how Brexit would have an impact on us. While we have a fulfillment centre in Germany, our main UK fulfillment centre is in Barnsley, so we actually don’t have a huge volume of EU-UK customer transactions. We are insulated to a degree because of our Berlin European hub, which is able to serve our EU customers. With that said, there are tons of challenges because it comes with new ways of working; we’ve had to redirect our suppliers and supplier orders and that kind of thing. But actually we did so much planning and preparation for it that there haven’t been any unforeseen issues that we’ve come across so far. It was just a case of really understanding what the issues would be, and then closely monitoring things like the ports and congestion. Overall we’ve been pretty resilient because of the preparation we did.

What would you say have been the main lessons that you’ve learned during the experience of leading a legal team through the lockdown?

Resilience is key, and the past 18 months really have been a marathon. I think strong leadership, good communication and making sure everyone is supported are all absolutely key. The experience of lockdown is very individual and personal, even though they are shared experiences in some respects, for example the blurring between home life and work life and the the difficulties and challenges that this creates.

There are positives that we’ll be able to take forward, including more flexible working, and what really impressed me was how everyone really came together. The camaraderie throughout, the team mentality and the closeness between us has been amazing. I’m always a big fan of taking the positives from a negative situation, and humans are very adaptable. People have managed to get through the situation and actually accomplish amazing things that we would never have contemplated before this happened. It’s challenged previous conceptions of of ways of working and what can be done remotely.