In-House Insights with Maria Zarah R. Villanueva Castro of Manila Electric Company

November 3, 2021
Q: Tell us a little about your professional background and how you came to be in your current role? Sometime in 1997, I started as Court Attorney for the Philippine Court of Appeals where I assisted Justices in evaluating and drafting decisions on cases appealed before them. I then had a short stint as department manager at a Government-owned and controlled corporation until I decided to join the Manila Electric Company or Meralco in 1999. Meralco is the largest electric distribution company in the Philippines. I started as a staff lawyer performing litigation work until I was designated to head its Corporate Legal team. During my free time, I also teach in law schools where I impart my knowledge of commercial law. Q: How big is your team and how is it structured? Our Corporate Legal office is composed of 10 lawyers and seven paralegal and administrative staff. Two teams report to me – one handles corporate legal work for Meralco and the other team renders legal services to Meralco’s subsidiaries and affiliates. Q: What are the biggest challenges facing In-House lawyers today? One big challenge in-house lawyers inevitably face is how to balance a duty to promote the company’s business and at the same time ensure it is compliant with rules, which are often perceived as obstacles in meeting goals and targets. The bigger the organization, the more risks are shifted to the in-house counsel and at times, they must make commercial decisions. So, it is for a counsel to understand the business, its goals and targets, as well as strategies. It is also imperative to communicate the...

In-House Insights with Amber Gupta of Aditya Birla Group

September 21, 2021
1) Tell us a little about your professional background and how you came to be in your current role? I have more than 20 years of work experience as an in-house counsel and corporate secretary specializing in financial services, Corporate & Securities Laws, Insurance, Banking & NBFC Regulations, IPR Laws, IT Laws, Dispute Resolution, Contract Management and Transaction Advisory. I am working with Financial Services – Aditya Birla Group since June 2008. Starting with Aditya Birla Money as Head- Legal, Compliance and Secretarial and thereafter as Head Legal & Company Secretary with Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance in Feb 2014. In March 2021, I joined as Head Corporate Legal, Company Secretary & Compliance Officer – Aditya Birla Capital Limited. Aditya Birla Capital Limited is the holding company for the financial services businesses of the Aditya Birla Group. Key highlights of my career so far include the hands-on operating experience of multiple lines of business, working on different issues, dealing with regulations, problem solving, implementing best practices and developing the best in-house corporate legal and secretarial teams. 2) How big is your team and how is it structured? Like most in-house teams, it is a midsized corporate compliance and legal team catering to all kinds of regulatory matters and providing transactional advisory support to business. 3) What are the biggest challenges facing in-house lawyers today? The role of in-house lawyers is always challenging. With a plethora of regulations and an ever-changing regulatory landscape, these challenges are only increasing. One must stay fully updated on what is happening at all times and keep abreast of emerging laws to provide sound professional...

In-House Insights with Nick Tomlinson of Dentsu International

August 31, 2021
Q: Tell Us A Bit About Your Background And Your Current Role As Global Director Of Ethics And Compliance, And General Counsel, Asia Pacific, At Dentsu International I began my legal career in the litigation department of New Zealand law firm Bell Gully, working primarily on competition matters and market access regulatory issues, particularly in the pharmaceuticals, telecoms and energy markets. I progressed into an in-house role at the company that is now Vodafone NZ, which was then a client of Bell Gully. I left New Zealand in 1997, spent some time in Canada, then relocated to Hong Kong in 1998. I joined Hong Kong Telecom and was with that group under various ownership for 10 years. In 2008, I took some time out to entertain an alternative career in the restaurant business and trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Following the global financial crisis in 2008, I joined Aegis Group plc in 2009 and I’ve been here ever since. In 2013, Dentsu acquired Aegis Group plc and formed Dentsu International, one of the largest advertising groups in the world. Q: How Big Is Your Team And How Is It Structured? As the general counsel for Asia Pacific (excluding Japan), I run a team of more than 40 lawyers, data and compliance professionals. This team is managed through senior lawyers who directly report to me. The remit is primarily focused on five main areas: mergers & acquisitions, commercial client & supplier work, data & privacy, compliance and management of the legal and compliance team. In March 2021, in addition to the Asia Pacific role, I took on the...

Energy In-House Insight with Sigrid Wettwer of DNV

July 7, 2021
Q. Give Us An Overview Of Your Role As In-House Counsel In The Energy Sector, In Particular. What Sort Of Work Are You And Your Team Often Called Upon To Help Solve? DNV is a leading global independent expert in risk management and quality assurance. We provide services to various fields including energy and maritime. Our regional legal teams support DNV’s business areas in the Middle East and Asia Pacific with day-to-day issues, but also strategic and regulatory matters. The team includes five lawyers with diverse legal and cultural backgrounds working from Shanghai, Singapore, and Dubai. We support DNV’s operations during the contracting phase to guard against legal uncertainties during or after service delivery and on regulatory matters. For DNV’s Energy Systems, our lawyers work closely with the energy contracting section, which is a global team of highly skilled contract advisors. Q. What Are Some Key Trends You Are Keeping An Eye On In The Overall Energy Sector? The larger trend for the energy sector and wider society is the shift towards more sustainable energy solutions and decarbonization. Much of the energy industry changed significantly in 2020. DNV’s Energy Transition Outlook (ETO) 2020, where we present an independent, model based forecast of the world’s most likely energy future through to 2050, found that energy-related CO2 emissions peaked, brought forward five years by the Covid-19 pandemic. We are now seeing lower demand and lower prices for fossil fuels and many governments are pushing plans to stimulate their economies using policies and investments designed to “green” their energy systems. Similarly, our ETO data also found that Covid-19 reduced global energy demand...

In-House Insights with Lynette Lim of Cargill

June 23, 2021
Q: Tell Us A Little About Your Professional Background And How You Came To Be In Your Current Role? I am currently the Asia Pacific Regional General Counsel for Cargill. I have direct and indirect responsibility for the entire Asia Pacific Law team made up of more than 50 lawyers and legal personnel located in Singapore (where I am based), India, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, China, Japan and Korea. I began my career in a boutique law firm in Singapore where I learned to apply legal critical thinking and develop my technical skills for negotiating deals. In my mind, the best deal is done when all parties go away feeling they have snagged a good deal for themselves and no one feels ripped off. After about six years at a private practice, I moved to my first in-house role with some amount of trepidation since I had no idea how it might change my career path. Over the course of the next 17 years, I worked with three different companies with a diverse and evolving portfolio across three different continents. In those roles I developed a keen interest in how the law interacts with business, the importance of diversity and inclusion and the dynamics of leadership and talent management. Q: What Aspects Of Your In-House Role Do You Most Enjoy? I see myself as a “strategic dots-connector” when I help businesses achieve a commercial goal or when I guide my law team to make good judgment calls. I am a corporate commercial lawyer by training and have always enjoyed the process of understanding objectives, figuring out the crux of issues...

In-House Insights with Carina Wessels of Alexander Forbes

April 28, 2021
This In-House Insight was published in IHC eMagazine Vol1, Issue 1. to read the full magazine, please click here. Carina Wessels is the Executive: Governance, Legal & Compliance at Alexander Forbes and Advocate of the High Court of South Africa.     Q: Tell us a little about your professional background and how you found this present role? I am grateful for a varied career, which truly made me a well-rounded and commercially minded executive. I’ve managed company aircraft, balanced scorecard facilitation and coordination, managed SAP projects, bespoke 20 keys (similar to the Toyota production system principles) and performed many continuous business improvement interventions. Over the last 14 years, I was principally involved in the governance, legal and compliance disciplines. And after a decade and a half in the mining industry, I moved to financial services in 2017 (Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited) as Group Company Secretary. Six months later, I was the Group Company Secretary and General Counsel and a year after that I became the Executive of Governance, Legal and Compliance. Q: How big is your team and how is it structured? I have 26 people in the bigger team, most directly managed by Fiona Rollason, Head of Legal and Group Insurance, Shabnam Parker, Chief Compliance Officer and the Assistant Group Secretary/Assistant General Counsel. But that last position is presently vacant. Q: What are the biggest challenges for in-house lawyers? Establishing a solid and mutually supportive relationship with business is a constant challenge. This is  especially true if in-house lawyers aren’t commercially minded or focused on enabling legal solutions. The ability to operate in “the grey” is crucial. Also,...