You were a litigation paralegal at S&C and then rejoined as an associate in the Corporate & Finance and Project Finance Groups in New York and Paris, and have since worked as an in-house lawyer and business leader across many industries, divisions and countries. What influenced your desire to work cross-functionally and internationally?
As an attorney, I always sought stimulating and complex experiences with world-class industry leaders – these are the complex and multi-dimensional environments where I believed I would get stretched and learn the most. Personally, I have always had an international outlook and multi-cultural exposure. My parents are German and immigrated to Canada before starting a family. As a child, I spoke German at home, learned French at school and had experiences with many different cultures through the suburban Canadian neighborhood I grew up in, family travel primarily to Europe and through educational programs in high school and university. That’s the background motif to working internationally.
During my tenure at S&C, my language skills afforded me the opportunity to work in the Firm’s Paris office, not only on French language and client matters but also across Europe. From New York, I worked on international and foreign sovereign securities matters, and in project finance, where I had the chance to work on very complex, cross-border, multi-party long-term projects like a Venezuelan petroleum ship loading terminal project. I liked the diversity of the clients across Canada, the U.S. and Venezuela, as well as the diversity of the specific issues and chapters within that greater project. I decided to move in-house as I realized, while I enjoyed the challenge of the high standard and the depth of the work at S&C, I was attracted to the interesting business cases and the complexity of global entities and to being part of their longer-term value creation narratives. My language skills put me in the way of many interesting experiences that helped me discover that I like to learn and love to build.
I joined Pfizer as my first in-house role in 2002, as the third lawyer hired into their corporate compliance team on the heels of the Enron scandal, a revision of pharma industry ethical standards and the passing of Sarbanes-Oxley. I was hired as a securities lawyer as SOX was a securities law, but the truth is we were part of the first wave of compliance professionals and we were figuring it out as we went. While a bit unsettling, it suited me well enough as I was resistant to being put in a box; I have always enjoyed connecting dots and seeing across business functions and identifying gaps. Being able to see the bigger picture, working cross-functionally and feeling the accountability to make it work became very natural to me.
I often say the best thing you can do for your career is to be “lucky,” which is really the intersection of being prepared and seizing opportunities as they come. At Pfizer, just after the 2008 financial crisis, the opportunity came to leave New York and take on new and greater commercial legal responsibilities as GC to a European business unit based in Rome, Italy. For that transition, I relied on my team because I didn’t speak the language or know anyone locally outside of work. I built my network by being a part of an industry association and the community of in-house attorneys. As I took on different roles with increasing responsibility and moved to new companies and countries, I continued to develop my network, first on a regional then a global basis. I leaned on and into that network and their opinions and advice and learned to ask the right questions in spinning my professional web. After a decade in Europe and working on global matters, when I moved back to the U.S. during the global pandemic, my unexpected challenge was to prove that I had enough American relevance to add value to a U.S. corporation. At that time, I was thrilled to become the CLO at Ingredion. As a large mid-cap, U.S. multinational that is extraordinarily diverse, it offers the challenges and environment that makes use of my international experience and U.S. training to support the strategic growth of the business, as I lead a global legal, compliance, government and regulatory affairs team.
You have served as a leader at many global companies including Pfizer, Whirlpool, Luxottica (now Essilor-Luxottica), and now Ingredion. What are the questions that a modern day CLO faces in an ever-changing regulatory environment?
What all these companies have in common is that they span the entire business value-chain from early innovation, manufacturing, global distribution and after-sales services on a global basis. At the same time, they are all publicly traded U.S. companies, so there is a defined regulatory framework and set of priorities, as well as a common commitment to business ethics and values. The legal landscape in the U.S. and abroad, as well as particular to any industry, is challenging as it’s ever-changing. The most important task for an in-house legal team is to understand and manage areas of risk in order to inform and enable the growth strategy and protect the enterprise. At Ingredion, for example, the changing regulatory environment and legal and commercial implications of the public dialogue on food and nutrition (think labeling, ‘ultra-processed foods’, etc.), food science and biotechnology, agricultural sustainability and innovation, as well as government policy, have significant impact on our ability to execute our business strategy and to nurture and protect our assets. The challenge is how fast we react to comply with such changes and updates. As the CLO of Ingredion, my team and I, working with our business partners, have to think about our legal and compliance obligations, as well as our purpose and values, and anticipate what may or may not happen and be ready for it as regulatory environments change nationally and globally.
Overall, being in-house requires you to understand your business. Fundamentally, I like an interesting business case, and I like working with tangible products that I can understand and that positively impact my life and those of the people around me. I enjoy building things, creating value through enabling growth and innovation, with high integrity. I like to push boundaries safely and faster than the competition. Orchestrating, enabling and bringing teams together at companies that have a compelling business case is something that drives me.
A large part of your role includes managing your legal team and collaborating successfully across many levels and international cultures. What qualities do you look for in a successful legal team, and what type of environment do you aim to foster?
Having worked in different places, I am aware that environment can affect people’s ability to be excellent. When people feel that their contributions and differences are respected, it drives engagement and productivity. We each need to know and be confident in the values we bring to a team and contribute to a product or outcome, as well as know that our individual contribution can be even stronger with the input of someone else. I want people to be able to work out how they can fit together. Of course, table stakes are subject matter expertise and experience, paired with leadership capability at all levels, including the obligation to speak, dissent, collaborate and resolve conflicts; at the same time, we also need generalists who are avid connecters. Increasingly, I am also looking for contributors with a greater understanding of legal operations. Most importantly, what I look for are talent, potential and an immense amount of curiosity. People who know how to ask good questions of themselves and others to discern strategic direction will thrive on my team.
