Action plan

Top inhouse counsel discuss how the pandemic has re-shaped their role, and how they are priming for the challenges that the new year will bring

Businesses are ploughing an uphill furrow in the Year of the Ox. While the pandemic may be receding, we have yet to go back to old ways of doing business, and only companies that have been able to swiftly adapt to the changing business environment will continue to thrive in these tough times.

Meanwhile, governments around the world have been in overdrive trying to manage and regulate the rapid transitions the world has had to make in the past 12 months. All these have opened up businesses to volatility and unprecedented risks, which has made the role of in-house legal teams more important than ever.

General counsel must now march lock-step with their business heads to help their companies navigate the challenges and prepare for the unseen. It is against this backdrop that we invited some of the country’s leading general counsel to share their expectations for the new year, their experiences of how they helped steady their ships, and what they have done to ensure their businesses stay on course.