Legal department strategy
The legal department of iconic tyre-manufacturer Michelin has a strategy for success. Group general counsel Benoit Balmary talks GC through its eight-point legal manifesto.
The driving seat of a global legal organisation is a complex place to be – and many GCs could be forgiven for spending all their energy just to stay in the same place. Not so at Michelin. Despite overseeing a legal team of 200 lawyers and patent engineers, spread across 20 countries, group general counsel Benoit Balmary was keen to serve not only the business strategy of Michelin, but to develop his own.
‘We have a team called the global management team, which is the management team of the legal function worldwide, which I chair. This is composed of all of the general counsel of the regional teams, and the heads of the biggest domain teams (IP and corporate) and the head of ethics – because ethics concerns everybody. This team meets every semester and together we set the strategy of the legal dept for the coming years,’ explains Balmary.
