What do you see as an opportunity or risk over the next six months? 

As an opportunity, we are consolidating our existing activity on tracking key legal matters, relationship law firm spending, budgets and training, into a formal legal operations centre. Internal data analytics capability is being used in support of this, to further improve efficiency and best utilisation of resources across the organisation. 

As the legal landscape evolves, what steps are you taking to foster a culture of continuous learning and development within the legal team, ensuring that they are all well-equipped to address future legal complexities? 

Ensuring continued development and growth within the team is particularly important to me. We have a tailored training programme for our lawyers. We also have an assignment programme, allowing lawyers to spend a few weeks in another part of the legal function, both internationally and within the UK, to gain a better understanding and perspective of the business and its operations across different business sectors. In the past year, we have also put in place active development programmes for our junior and mid-career lawyers, supported by our more senior lawyers, to ensure again tailored development. The skillsets which our legal team have are very highly regarded in the business, and I am very pleased that our lawyers have the opportunity to move into senior roles in other functions and management areas within the company; in the past year, two of our most senior lawyers have moved into HR director and ESG governance director roles respectively. 

As a general counsel, how do you anticipate and prepare for potential legal and regulatory challenges that may arise, particularly in light of emerging technologies and evolving business landscapes? 

The legal team is embedded within each of our businesses; senior legal team members are active participants of the business management boards and involved in all relevant business approvals; this combined with my participation in our CEO business reviews, approval processes, the executive committee and board meetings, means that we have a strong and close perspective on the business landscape. We work very collaboratively within the function, with our law firms, and across our specialist areas, to anticipate and discuss upcoming issues, as well as areas of legislative or regulatory change which are likely to arise in the future. In support of this, several members of our team sit on external bodies, both national and international. Moreover, as a technology-driven company, our teams are heavily involved in all legal aspects of innovation and emerging technologies, for example, in relation to the commercialisation of intellectual property through our commercial IP team, and with patent protection, through our patent attorney team.