Legal expertise is not sufficient. A sound and precisely organized, interdisciplinary legal project management including detailed, but still flexible time and action plans is key to ensure the success of any venture.
Leading teams or contributing in steering committees in standard as well as exceptional transitional and emergency situations is my passion since I started out as business lawyer 25+ years ago. I thrive on troubleshooting and using challenges as an opportunity to improve on a large scale, step-by-step with a long-term view.
Even more so, if something unforeseen happens and you (also) need legal/compliance remediation, how prepared you are (crisis readiness) and the way you deal with it and how quickly you can solve it is more important than the bad event itself.
It can not only harm human lifes and the company’s assets, but also its reputation, brand, share price, turnover, etc.
Even if a company pays a penalty, the negative impact can be broader and affect future business plans. That means, a bad event not properly managed can affect reputation including the career of the individuals on whose watch something goes wrong. You can loose customers, employees and more as well as face regulatory action and litigation.
Also, in crises situations to convey a greater context based on the affected organization’s values is key. It is the basis when quick decisions need to be made.
Communication has to be precise and still consider the emotions of various stakeholders involved.
Services include:
Project lead
- (Total) Project lead of all types of legal transactions and projects including M&A, joint ventures, equity and IPO transactions or lead of subprojects (see also in particular project lists in the practice areas “Corporate Law”, “Commercial incl. Financial Law”, “Compliance”, “General Counsel Services”).
- Advice in legal projects in new areas lacking consistent and recognised standards.
Crisis management
- Leading and/or serving as a co-captain or a member of an emergency (first) responder team and legal manager in crises situations such as troubleshooting legal problem cases, managing governmental or other inquiries, emergency reporting requests from all kinds of internal and external functions, employee issues and team conflicts on all levels.
- Participation in the design of emergency/crisis organization, committees, incidence/leak response/contingency plans and procedures (clear crisis related decision-making powers structures) including designing of external partners team line-up and mock training events from a legal and compliance perspective.
- Participation in emergency/crisis committee meetings as well as in short-term and long-term remediation committee meetings covering legal and compliance aspects.
Reference transactions, competencies and achievements include:
- Team Lead of a highly diverse 30 person Axiom team on a confidential internal review project at a large multinational bank (18 months) (team leadership duties see practice area “General Counsel Services” and – as to the scope of review – practice area “Compliance”):
- 20+ nationalities, various legal backgrounds and different levels of experience, working on various work streams within a multi-professional services firm set up responsible for applying sophisticated review protocols to a large volume of documents including the management of all personnel questions.
In parallel with the function as:
Team Lead of 15+ person mixed team from various services firms:
- Supervising reviews ensuring balance of quality and productivity, answering questions regarding the application of review protocols and the assessment of documents relating to financial services (products) and the background of related regulation.
- Developing reviewers and proposals for appointment for special tasks and quality review functions.
- Update briefings relating to review aspects and collecting feedback regarding new issues.
- Managing of many short term changes of team composition, integrating and training of new team members, preparing and managing reorganizations of review structures/concepts/processes, ensuring team spirit and a productive work environment throughout many change situations and considering tight deadlines.
- Managed multiple health crises situations of team members and several evacuations on client’s premises as responsible team lead with very positive feedback from individuals as well as from team members of other service providers and from the client and as to the latter in particular also regarding my proposals to improve emergency procedures and response plans.
- Managed 100+ interdisciplinary due diligence and M&A projects with the participation of up to 60 experts including listed companies (Legal 500: personally named 2012/2013) in an international context and with tight deadlines.
- Representation of a General Counsel of a listed industrial group in connection with the sale of a business unit for 6+ weeks (project organization and launch of an international auction).
- Managed and advised on dozens of time-sensitive capital market transactions (recognition by the SIX Swiss Exchange as representative to issuers).
- Participated in numerous emergency committee meetings covering legal and compliance aspects.
- Drafting of various crises response plans from a legal and compliance perspective.
- Drafting of a leak contingency plan in connection with envisaged capital markets and corporate transactions to ensure adherence to ad hoc publication duties and responsibilities.
- Secured the production centre of the business segment of and industrial group (= 40% of the total sales) in connection with the protection of all rights relating to the impact of various third party building projects in the vicinity of the production centre, while maintaining good neighborly relations and constructive relations with the authorities.
- Saved several CHF 100,000 through effective and efficient settlement of various procedures also with international references (labor law, storage of chemical products, etc.).