Royal Mail GC de Bie posts resignation to take on new role at easyJet

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Royal Mail GC de Bie posts resignation to take on new role at easyJet

Highly rated Royal Mail general counsel Maaike de Bie has resigned to become legal chief at FTSE 100 airline easyJet next year.

De Bie (pictured), who is expected to join up with easyJet in 2019, brings to an end a five-year tenure at Royal Mail. She joined in January 2014 as deputy GC and subsequently oversaw a legal panel review in November of the same year. Prior to Royal Mail, White & Case-trained de Bie had spells in-house at both GE and Big Four firm EY. Continue reading “Royal Mail GC de Bie posts resignation to take on new role at easyJet”

The team in I: The GC Powerlist Summer Reception

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The team in I: The GC Powerlist Summer Reception

Nailing the issue of what makes a high-performing in-house function, with the emphasis on operational sophistication, has become the Holy Grail for general counsel (GCs). Following the launch earlier this year of the 2018 GC Powerlist – which highlighted 50 leading in-house teams – we teamed up with headline sponsor Eversheds Sutherland to assemble an audience of more than 70 in-house counsel at The Ned. This featured an informal discussion between our panel of senior lawyers and operations staff working at some of the biggest multinationals. The debate covered the introduction of legal operations specialists, the advance of technology and widening the skills of in-house functions, all geared towards creating more effective and nimble teams.

*** Continue reading “The team in I: The GC Powerlist Summer Reception”

Forming, storming, norming and performing

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Forming, storming, norming and performing

What makes a great corporate legal team? It is a question general counsel (GCs) surprisingly often struggle to answer. This lack of familiarity with the stock definitions of management theory should not be interpreted as a sign of operational incompetence, though.

‘The most common attribute any company looks for when hiring a GC is the ability to manage and lead a team,’ says Siobhán Lewington, managing director of legal recruitment boutique Fox Rodney Search. ‘The interview process is designed to highlight those skills and it is all but impossible to become head of a legal department now without an innate flair for teambuilding.’ Continue reading “Forming, storming, norming and performing”

Sponsor message – Safelink: Improve productivity, reduce costs and engage your clients

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Sponsor message – Safelink: Improve productivity, reduce costs and engage your clients

Legal departments and law firms are under increasing cost pressures and it is no longer about doing more with less; it is simply a question of efficiency: top-quality output with less cost, fewer people and fewer mistakes. This leads the enlightened to the hot topics of business and digital transformation, which go hand in hand with technology and raise the issue of digital trust.

Automation of processes, secure and instant collaborative working and artificial intelligence provide huge opportunities for increasing efficiencies and quality, and creating the transparency that engenders trust in the client/provider relationship. Coupling this with the inherent security advantages of such technologies, a firm awareness of the associated risks, and adherence to an ever-changing regulatory and statutory landscape, gives the opportunity to create an environment of digital trust. Continue reading “Sponsor message – Safelink: Improve productivity, reduce costs and engage your clients”