Navigating International Law and Leadership with Maria Barros

In this episode of Lessons I Learned in Law, Scott meets with Maria Barros, Chief Legal and Public Affairs Officer at Booking.com.

Maria is a true Citizen of the World. Born in London, from a Brazilian family, Maria loves travelling (passion and profession have collided at Booking.com) and has lived in the UK, US, Brazil, Mexico, Belgium and is now based in the Netherlands, where, in addition to her role as Chief Legal & Public Affairs Officer, she is a member of the Management Board of Booking.com and Board member of ACC Europe, the largest global association of in-house counsel. Before that, Maria was General Counsel Europe and Middle East of AB-InBev, the global brewer.

Maria shares her insights on how she has built a best in class integrated legal and public affairs function at Booking.com with a strong focus on developing talent.

We also discuss the importance of developing a strong reliable network and hear how the ACC has been a "home away from home" and a fantastic support network for in-house lawyers.

A really interesting story with a unique International legal career at some huge global brands!

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To find out more information on the ACC and how to get involved see the links below:

- How to learn more about the ACC – More information on the ACCE website: Europe | Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC)

- How to become an ACC member - individual and group – see this link: Membership | Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC)

- How to register for the May conference – see this link: Registration - ACC (acceurope.com)

Transcript

[00:00:00] So I'm delighted to be joined today on Lessons I Learned in Law by Maria Barros, who is chief legal and public affairs officer at Booking. com. She's also a member of their management board, and she sits on the board of the Association for Corporate Council, which is a body of a network in a community of in house legal professionals, and it's something that she's really passionate about.

She's actually chairing the annual conference in Edinburgh, my hometown in a month or so's time. So in the podcast, you'll learn about how Maria joined booking dot com in 2019 pre covid and has seen it through a significant and how she's structured and her thought process around structuring and building a really integrated legal function, which to me sounds like something that's really best in class.

You'll also hear about her background. She's a real international lawyer a citizen of the world so to speak. She qualified in, in [00:01:00] Brazil. Practiced in New York, has cross qualified in England and Wales, and that's brought her here to Europe where she is in her current role. But prior to that was at AB InBev.

If you've got itchy feet, fancy international travel, or if you're intrigued about how to build a really successful legal function, Or hear a bit more about personal brand and how to engage with talent in the way that she has and building the legal team at Booking. com. And this one's for you.

So so tune in and hope you enjoy. So hi Maria. Welcome to Lessons I Learned in Law. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Scott. Could you give us a start by giving us an overview of your position a bird's eye view of your role at Booking. com? Sure. So I'm, I've been at booking for five, almost five years now on May 8th.

I'm turning five years at booking and I'm chief legal and public affairs. So that means that I cover with my team, obviously legal compliance and public affairs. And I'm also part of [00:02:00] the, what they call here, the management board of the company reporting to the CEO. And Booking is quite a unique company in the sense that it's part of Booking Holdings, but Booking is the majority of that business.

We don't disclose that number but Booking Holdings is listed in NASDAQ. We have to comply with all the U. S. securities laws. But the history of the company and the company is born Dutch. It's one of the oldest internet companies. It's over 25 years old Dutch founders and it grew massively.

Some people say it's been one of the most successful M and A's in history because it was bought by a couple of hundred million and now market cap is 100 billion. So it's a success story of an European tech company. Yeah, I was doing my homework leading up to this. So it survived the.

dot com. Barely, but yes. Limping out the other side. Yes. Limping. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And then what's interesting is that it's a global scope. My, my team [00:03:00] has been growing since when I joined, we were about 40 people and now we are getting by the year end around 170, 180 people.

And one question I usually get is, why is that? And a big part, I would say, is the ambitions of the company have changed. We are expanding into flights, insurance, and a number of other areas, attractions, and that comes with the need of Yeah. So it's been a very interesting journey to see the department grow from those early days.

Are there people still involved in booking. com from the longest tenure? Yeah. We call anybody that has been at booking for more than 10 years. We call them dinosaurs. Okay. But yeah, no, we have plenty of dinosaurs. So it's I think I've heard here in Amsterdam, we have a campus of 5000 people.

And I heard at some point that there's more than 100 nationalities I haven't checked. But my own team, we have more than 30 nationalities. Wow. And that's something that I feel very strongly to have that diversity culturally, and [00:04:00] also lawyers qualified in many different places. So we have here, Lawyers from all around Europe and elsewhere.

And I'm very proud of that because that really helps us cover that scope. One of our challenges and make, which makes the job interesting is that our product, except for certain countries around the world is available everywhere. And we have partners everywhere around the world. So in 200 countries.

This means that many times we are looking at regulation of various places and we need people qualified or it's helpful to have people qualified in our key markets. So U. S., Spain, Italy, UK, Netherlands, France, it's all very important. And then Asia, of course as well. Yeah. Joined 2019.

Yeah. middle of 2019, middle of 2020. How did the role that you were hired to do, like how did it, what was the biggest shift between that May and then March, 2020 when travel industry started in [00:05:00] February, I remember, but yes, it was. Look, it changed, of course, because we were in a trajectory of growth.

Growth, and then all of a sudden, 85 percent of the revenue was gone. Yeah. So it was quite an experience. And I think, yeah, at many learnings that I could talk about, but I would say, yes, we got into all sorts of, as many companies, unfortunately we had to go through restructuring. That was a very big piece of work that we haven't expected.

But then the part that made me very proud was how we dealt with the travelers. Because one interesting fact that not a lot of people know, but a lot of people in Europe in January, they, during winter, they book their summer holidays. Yeah. So when the COVID hit, we had a lot of issues with a big percentage had booked their summer holidays and were nervous about what that meant and wanted refunds.

And I think we played a very important role there of helping travelers with that and giving refunds in most cases. But I'm proud and, it also taught me. [00:06:00] We went straight to the regulators here in the Netherlands, for example, to explain what we were doing and also the, and we can talk about that later, but the importance of being proactive and collaborative and transparent usually pays off.

Yeah. And you moved from the booze industry. Yeah, which probably had a massive peak going into lockdown if my consumption was anything to go by. So yeah, it must have been, I think they struggled as well. Yes, but I was in the beer industry. I like to say I was. Yeah, it's. It's. Both things are things that are connected with people's entertainment, fun times and social.

In that sense, it's not such a big change, but for me, what was important was that the beer industry was already very regulated and the tech industry is becoming more regulated. So that was also part of the driver. I wanted to. To move to a place where a new law was being created, where new issues were coming up.

And definitely booking has delivered on that promise. And you're [00:07:00] also, we were talking before, I think, Ricard you're the board member of the ACC. Corporate councils. Yeah. So the Association of Corporate Council is one of the largest associations. I think it's the largest association in the world for in house lawyers.

And I'm a board of what we call the European chapter and I've been there for five years and yeah, It gives me a lot of happiness by doing that because I really believe in the role of in house lawyers as a force for good and within companies, but it is a tough job. Nobody writes us to say how everything is going well, right?

There's a lot of you're dealing with issues and challenges every day. So it's a way of meeting people that have similar experiences and also very international. It's a very international organization. So we are organizing now a conference in end of May in Scotland in Edinburgh in your hometown.

So very excited about that and we want to make more interactive and facilitating more connections between people. [00:08:00] So I'm very excited. I'm the chair. It's a lot of work to pull together the program. So I really hope that yeah, we have a fantastic conference. I'm sure we will have. But we'll jump in now to lesson one.

Um, What's your first lesson? So I've been thinking about how to approach this, and I decided to focus on the things I wish I had known when I started my career in house. Okay. Those things that nobody told me that feeling, and my first lesson is I think it's true what the cliche says, that first impressions stick and the importance of of having a good first impression.

And what do you do with that? What I mean by that is you need to prepare for things. And for example, if you have a new role, one thing that has really helped me is this book, the first 90 days that helps you structure. How do you come in to a new role, even if it's in the same company and you're changing role?

What do you do in that beginning, learning the business, but also which stakeholders to meet, having quick wins in the [00:09:00] beginning to establish your credibility, be extremely available in the beginning and creating those relationships because then that credit comes back. And it's very hard and I have seen this happening.

If you start in the wrong way, it's very hard. to reverse. And that also applies, I would say I, I'd like to share these things with my team. If I have a public presentation, in the beginning I would really rehearse like 15 times before and think about any questions that would be asked to me.

And now I can do without doing that or reducing the amount, but it was a boss of mine that told me once and he was a executive president of a business unit. I And he told me like, Oh, I've been rehearsing all day yesterday. And I was like, wow, I thought you spoke so naturally. I didn't think you were rehearsing, and then you realize how much preparation goes into things or in a meeting, an important meeting that the CEO has thinking about the talking points, the messages, how to answer to certain questions.

There's a lot more preparation, I think, at least where I've worked. [00:10:00] Then I realized and and that ensures good performance or increases your chances of good performance. So the thing, my, my lesson is that's the dirty little secret that, first impressions really count. So if you have an opportunity to example, to present to the leadership team or to the board, Put the time on it, think how you want to show up, think about the questions that people are going to ask.

Yeah. Because that can go a long way and you're building your reputation. Yeah. I guess the same goes going into any new role regardless of the levels of stakeholders. But how do you coach your team around that? Do you have a, is there a playbook in terms of onboarding or like how do you go about?

I think we try to do sessions. We have a program called Thrive within booking within the legal department. So we try to do sessions around this where we focus on different topics that people can engage in. And then we can discuss, how to have difficult conversations, management of stakeholders, management of workload.

So we've been expanding and getting different topics. So that's one is really in the end is telling stories and talking to people. What I do [00:11:00] myself and encourage others to do. Is to ask afterwards. How did the meeting go? How did I show up in this meeting? Do you think that my message stuck?

Did I come too strong? I really think it's very important to seek feedback and create the environment that people give you feedback. And feedback is like fish. You cannot wait more than three days, you know? And I also, so what I do with my team is really after a meeting, we usually Talk to each other about how it went, what we could have done better, and and try not to do it in a heavy way, of course, and not in every single meeting, but if we had an important meeting, let's reflect, let's see how we can do better and ask for feedback.

And I try to be very open about what are the things that I am working on, for example, speaking less in a meeting, be the last one to give an opinion. And I asked how I am doing on that, am I improving? And by telling what you're working on, I think people also feel more comfortable in sharing feedback.

And I do think that. It's so important for learning to reflect on [00:12:00] yourself and get that feedback loop. Yeah. Going back to the point on preparation. It's something that I've worked on with a coach because I am, there's certain things that I just find sticky to sit down and just do it like preparing for like public speaking has never been my something that I felt entirely comfortable doing.

But when I prepare and I come off knowing if I've done well. I don't need anyone to tell me if I'm like, I think I've done myself justice. But there's been a few occasions where I felt that hasn't been the case. It's always been down in preparation and I've got a sticking, but I don't know what it is like sitting down, taking that time to prepare and almost looking like you said about not seeing what someone's doing in the background and you just think, oh, they're just natural.

They can just stand up and talk and it just comes naturally. It's Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if anyone has that ability, but yeah, I think knowing your audience as well. I tried to ask about the audience and then what are you worried about? At booking, we have a lot of engineers [00:13:00] that I was talking today to someone about this how engineers think differently, if you, one of the concerns sometimes is, I'm going to go up and start talking about legal things that nobody will be interested in.

We'll find boring. How can you actually communicate in a way? That is more impactful for that group. Yeah. And then have some people internally that you can consult with and ask for advice. But I remember one example I had was I used to be the main the business partner for the international team at AB InBev in the distribution agreements around the world and the license agreements.

And if I said, if I wanted to do a legal training on contracts, nobody would come, or they would come not excited. But then if I market it as strategy and negotiations and war stories of contract negotiations, then people are very interested, you know, all of a sudden. And so I think it's important to think, why are you really worried?

Is it because you were worried that you're going to bore people? What can you do about it? So it's peel the onion and try to attack that in the root. That's my, [00:14:00] that's what has worked for me at least. Yeah. Good advice. Like I see your posts on LinkedIn, think they're like authentic and give a really good impression as to what you're like as an individual and as a leader.

Is that something that's. Do you have a strategy around that? Or is it something, is there a purpose to that? I'm No, I will be very honest. It's, it was a little bit by accident, to be honest, that I started, posting and initially was thinking about building my team and telling a bit more about booking.

Yeah. But over time, I, I don't have a strategy when I have an idea usually is when I'm biking around Amsterdam. Okay. I have an idea. I drafted, I went, I wait a few hours and then I post it because it's good to wait a few hours because then you it's good that you read it after you. But my strategy there is just share whenever I think I have something to share.

And when I say it happened by accident, I had this one post that was about my story. of [00:15:00] miscarriage. And talking because I was very touched that booking was giving parental leave for long periods and for, Both genders for different family situations, and also in case you had a miscarriage, you had four weeks.

And I remember that when I had a miscarriage, I had just one day, or at least I took only one day. I just gave myself the right for one day, which dealt with the physical elements, but not the psychological ones. And I did a post and it was almost half a million impressions. So that's why, that's what I mean by accident, because then I had more followers.

Not that I have many, but that's what happened. So I'm still exploring what I could do with this. But more than anything, it's just I don't think there are a lot of people that speak about in house, being in house. And I like the sense of community. I have met people through LinkedIn that I wouldn't have met otherwise.

And that, so I think it also helps diversifying my network because otherwise we get into our own bubbles of where you've studied, where you've worked and I liked [00:16:00] that it allows you to go broader. So that's something that also drove drives me now to do this. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll move on.

We'll move on to lesson two. So my lesson two is focus on impact. When you go, that's the, when you're in a house and maybe that applies for other professions as well, of course, but I tell my team usually giving the legal advice is half the job. The other half, I would say there's two main things. One is influence people to follow your advice and that there's the importance of communication, strategy, mapping, stakeholders and all that stuff.

And the other thing is how to operationalize legal advice. And that for me is something that I and my team are still working on. How do you make it in a way that if you're not there, your advice is already so embedded in the processes of the company that it will happen in the way that you intended it to happen.

Okay. So to give you an example, [00:17:00] just to illustrate, if you have a related party. Transactions, these companies are related to the company through the board members, et cetera. So when you looking at a contract that is with a related party, you have a different standard of review. Have that in the procurement system so that whenever those vendors show up that contract gets flagged and someone in legal takes a look.

Okay. So doing that next step of thinking. Wars are the things that I can put it in bed in the system with a control that helps. It doesn't apply to everything, but I think there are many things that you can put processes around and have that operational mindset, which is not something that I feel like we learned in law school.

Or in, in law firms, but it's extremely important because I think training is important, but I don't believe that training science tells you that people don't remember. By the way, remember 3 percent of what you say. And I see many times legal departments talking, Oh, we did training. Yes. But yeah, I think that gets to just as far as something, [00:18:00] yeah. And I guess booking as a disruptor, the disruptive business. It's an entrepreneurial business that the majority of the rest of the company will be encouraged to disrupt, to think outside the box. So there's no set way to do legal that's supporting that type of business. So you need entrepreneurial lawyers to think how can we make it?

Yeah. No, we have a mix. And that's why when we also, we hired, I should have mentioned that we also hired a combination of. People from startups and people from big companies as well, because also booking is becoming more regulated. So we need more processes and people that have seen what good looks like and then is helping us implement.

So I'm happy that we have. A good mix, but you're absolutely we are always discussing different operating models and recently on Gen AI we have a lot of work going on and it touches so many different areas of law. IP contracts and we created a pod, we call it the AI pod with a group of lawyers that were [00:19:00] cross functional, that together they, as a self contained team that would focus on the priorities that had and would run of the business with it instead of, working through your organizational structure.

It's been we've been testing different things, but that's what I mean to focus on impact to focus on the results. And then thinking one how you influence on this. How do you facilitate good conversations, good decisions, good meetings. And the second piece being how do you make it operational where you can make it operational?

So those are skills that we don't learn in law school. And again, nobody told me, I think maybe influence, I could have guessed, but the operational piece, it was new. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's good to get to the good feet who has like for you when you're looking at your peers, what's the gold standard of in house legal team?

Is there a, do you hold someone within your network or your peers or a business that has Historically, what was the gold standard legal [00:20:00] function? So I think the, I think different teams do different things, and for what I can see. But I also think that you can learn from anyone. I remember at ABN, but because it was very cost conscious at ACC once we had A session on how small legal departments I went to that session and I came out with tons of ideas of how to control costs by going to the small legal department.

So I think it's really tried to find out who is doing well. I would say in terms of the thing of writing around this, because there's not that many books from in house lawyers, a book that has really. Shaped my thinking is Brad Smith general counsel of Microsoft in a book called Tools and Weapons.

Okay. And he speaks about his lesson of being Microsoft for 10 years, litigating with the European Commission and elsewhere. And how they change their approach and collaboration with governments and the thinking behind, [00:21:00] of course, is something public. I imagine there's a lot of things that are not written in that book that has have happened, but I find there's some very good ideas about how to think proactively on self regulation.

On some of the stuff that I mentioned before, how to make integrity operationalized. And that's for me is something. So I imagine that Microsoft has a very good legal department. I would expect so. In your now currently in Amsterdam, but your career has been, it's an international legal career citizen citizen of the world, I think for lawyers that is often.

It's not always a profession that travels internationally, or there's, I think, an assumption or people put themselves in a box that it doesn't travel from jurisdiction. How did that come about your background qualified in brazil or yes, I did. And, and I was, you're absolutely right. I was sad when I went to law school that I felt like, because I always liked international environments.

[00:22:00] Yeah. And my parents had lived abroad many years. They, I was born in London, but then I went to Brazil and I was five years old. My parents had lived in France and England and had friends all over. So I always had this I really want to do that. So when I went to law school, I said, okay. But now I'm probably going to be the rest of my life in Brazil because I'm a Brazilian lawyer.

But then I had the luck of having a boss who told me about the LLM program in the United States, that you do a master's in law and that with that you can take the New York bar. You can work in a New York law firm or a different state, of course and start a career. And that's what I decided to do.

And once I was in a New York law firm, I also found out that I could transfer. And do some additional tests and become a UK solicitor. So I did that. Okay. So many ways to find your way but I don't think everybody needs to do that. I, one thing that I feel like it's a recommendation I have is I think it's important to have some experience and knowledge of [00:23:00] a civil law system and a common law system, because I think our two ways of thinking that, it's not completely different, but there are some differences and I think it helps.

To know, so I joke that my Brazilian background helps me a lot in continental Europe because Brazil is very much was influenced by Italian and France and Germany in its legal system. So that's a tip I have for students when they're asking me. And I also like people from Canada, for example, because in their law schools, they usually have common law and civil law.

So because of the way Canada is set up, yeah. That's one of the tips I have if you want an international career to try to understand how people think in different jurisdictions. But once you're in house, you have to be good at More than anything else in asking good questions it's not just answering the questions like you are in a law firm is spotting the issues and asking the right questions to spot the issues and to spot the opportunity as well.

So yeah. And the first move you made. So to come to Europe was, you were in house [00:24:00] at ABM Beth and moved to, yeah, it was in New York first as a legal director of MNA. And then I moved to Mexico where I worked on the integration of Grupo Modelo, the company that owns the Corona beer. And then I went to Belgium first for a global role and procurement and the IT department.

And there was a mix of different things in the international team. And then I became general counsel of Europe and Middle East. So I was there for eight years and I had four different roles in three different countries. So I consider myself very lucky, but I was willing to move as well. And that's not everybody is willing to move.

And I have a very supportive family. At the time, a boyfriend then became husband that was always supporting me in these moves. So we had for five years, we were not living in the same place, but not five years. It was not consecutive but we had the total five years where we were not living in the same place.

So it was hard, personal sacrifice but it also allowed us [00:25:00] to live in different places, get to know different places and yeah, visit each other also in different places. So nice. What's the hardest part for you of upstix relocating, like having moved to, moved from Belgium to Netherlands even.

It's I think my biggest lesson. is there's the poem in port by a Portuguese writer that speaks about being eternal while it lasts. And he's talking about relationships, that you have to face a relationship as if it's going to last forever, even if it doesn't, because if you come with a different mindset, it doesn't work.

I think I have had challenges with that of coming to a place thinking I'm not going to stay here for too long. Limiting how much I integrated in a way, focusing too much in a way on work and getting to know the country and traveling and less on connections because you never know for how long you're going to be there.

Over time I learned, no, I have to arrive on every place as if I was going to stay there forever. And that changes the experience. I think it's a little bit, it was a bit of a defense [00:26:00] mechanism because. When I was in New York, I felt like I was eight years in New York, 70, no, seven years in New York.

And New York is a place that people are coming and going, and for one, two years. So it felt a bit after seven years, I felt like sad that every year my friends were leaving, so it becomes a bit of a defense mechanism. But I learned that's not the right way to go. You have to go full in and hopefully learn the language.

If you don't know the language. Having said that, I have not learned that, so I'm not following my own advice, but the other places I lived, I spoke the language or learn the language. Yeah, it's just about trying, isn't it? And yeah steps little steps, but with young kids, it's a it's a challenge.

Where's is there anywhere there's I'll back to you on the Portuguese poem, but there's a Scottish song, Caledonia, and it's, caledonia is calling me, so it's about going back to Scotland, always feeling that your roots are in Scotland, although you'll travel and go here, there and everywhere.

Is there anywhere that feels that's where I'll, that's where I'll head and put [00:27:00] down roots later in life? I think the, I struggle with the question, where are you from? I usually say, that my heart is Brazilian. So culturally I am Brazilian through and through. Lived in Mexico, Belgium, England, Netherlands Belgium and another in the United States, but I feel Brazilian.

I feel a special connection with London because my parents lives many years there. So I also came back a lot. So that's a place I wouldn't call it home, but it's a special place. special connection. But I think my, I will say something cheesy, but my home is where my family is. So it's where my husband, my two kids, my dog.

So I feel a bit like a nomad in that sense, although trying to integrate everywhere I go, but that's where my home and it's isn't it? It's the immigrant Issue everywhere and nowhere is home and the world feels very much like that for me, but culturally I am Brazilian. Yeah, nice. And you're, yeah, you're in the right place at booking a travel business.

That was part of the plan. That was part of what attracted me. Yeah. [00:28:00] Nice. So lesson three, again, in this of thinking about the things that were not obvious to me when I went in houses. How is, my lesson is to always think how you're going to contribute as a department to the strategy of the company, and let me unpack that a little bit.

First, I think we have a as a legal department and as a legal community as in house lawyers, I think we have a lot of opportunity first because we see a lot. We have the bird's eye view of the business. We are involved in pretty much everything. And also the second thing is that what I use, people call it the outside in perspective because we are, especially in the public affairs side, we are.

out there speaking to regulators, to partners, to in our case hotel associations. We get to know a lot what others think of us. And unfortunately, our view is not always the view that others have on us. And understanding how your stakeholders are seeing certain practices, the issues that [00:29:00] they have.

And then bringing that into the company and being a little bit of that challenging voice, not a little bit, a lot. There's this challenging voice to internalize that stakeholder perspective. And. It doesn't mean we're going to do everything that stakeholders want, but take that into account.

I think it really helps creating a company that is more customer centric, more partner centric and that's anticipating issues. So I think that legal and public affairs, I really believe that we are very well positioned to take that role. And then what does it mean to take that role, right?

And the way I see it is getting the department being seen. beyond risk management. I think there's always a risk of talk to legal. So what's the risk, and I try to avoid that conversation, and not avoid completely, we can talk about risk, but avoid that framing better set, I joke with my team sometimes can we talk about law without using the words law regulation or compliance, and to give you an example, if the company, and we speak a lot about being more customer [00:30:00] centric Why don't we speak more internally and externally about earning trust of the customer, of being transparent, or giving choice?

All of these things in the end are in consumer law, in privacy law, but you don't need to use that framing. And I think that makes the legal department more strategic and more approachable and more connected to the business. That's one, and one of the things we've done to improve that. Every year in July, we have a The board meets to discuss the strategy of the company long term before that the leadership team meets.

So what do we do is we create as a department with my direct reports, a memo that talks about the things that we believe should be taken into account in terms of the external environment. What are the big issues happening? What do we see as trends? And then we recap if at what we said the previous year happened or didn't happen and our analysis and insights from the past and what we see coming forward and what do we think that means for the strategy of the company and that has helped [00:31:00] building a muscle of thinking more about the external environment but also forcing us to articulate that in a way that is compelling.

So that's one of the things. The other thing as thinking about what you could contribute to the company, I do think that. Lawyers are good in thinking long term. We are always thinking about what makes it sustainable, what's good in the long term interest of your stakeholders. And I think it's important to bring that view.

And there, of course, the the, how you communicate that is very important. But I also speak with my team, there are moments that we need to find space to say, okay, what's the vision for the legal department in the next three, four years? What do we want to be, or where do we want to go?

And also bring those discussions to the management teams that they are part of and help with that long term thinking and always from an efficiency standpoint, also thinking 10 percent of your time should be spent on making your future self. Doing the job easier, so I joke that 10 percent of my time has to be for future Maria to have a easier job.[00:32:00] 

And so there's this journey of self improvement as well that is thinking on the long term because otherwise You're gonna not be very happy one year in if you have moved enough And then in terms of what I'm very passionate about on all of this I mentioned the memos and the discussions is How can we see regulation and external environment as part of the business strategy, as a part of a reality and not just as a risk to be mitigated or addressed, and I think that legal teams can be very important to educate the board, the CEO on these topics and make it real, make it concrete and help the company navigate the complexity because the complexity is real.

Regulations are increasing. You have regulations that conflict with each other within a country and between countries. And I don't need to tell you about and or anyone about all the jail political issues that we are having, right? Helping a company navigate through that, I think, again, we are very well placed.

So that's something that I didn't realize when I come in, how important was for the role and just to make it also more concrete. [00:33:00] Yeah. The way I look at this is when I do my own review or review my direct reports, I tell my direct reports from the start. It's not that I tell that in the review, that they have three jobs.

One is to be the leader of their area. So whatever it is, privacy, employment, law, corporate. The other one is to be a leader of the department of the legal and public affairs department. And the other one is to be a leader of the company. What are you doing that you're contributing to the strategy and the and the results of the company.

And then we talk in those three different layers. And I find that helpful. And also for my own role. What I'm doing beyond leading the legal and public affairs department as a man, a member of the management, the board of the company, what values am I adding there? And I think that's a very important mindset.

And I would say it's not just for people that have the leadership role. I think I think people that are still in mid career. Act as a leader, be a leader in your space and also contribute to the company as a whole. And if you start acting like one that gets noticed and that's also like a career tip [00:34:00] that I would have.

Yeah. Yeah. Great tips. It sounds like a great function that you're building and developing. And I think going back to your piece on sounds like looking around corners to see what the risks, upcoming risks are and But that's where it's so important that the policy team, the public affairs team sits there.

That you've got that, you've got that dialogue and you're close to other legal departments as well. And yeah, you need to be careful not to stay only internally focused, right? And spend time talking to others. Thank you for sharing sharing those three. If people wanted to get involved in the ACC, how do they do that?

What's the best way to you can register and become a member as an individual. You can. If you're a general counselor, you can decide whether you want to register your whole team you as a corporate, or if you are not sure if you want to be a member yet or not, it's also possible to register to the conference and attend the conference as a non member.

Okay. There's a different pricing, but the difference is not too big. Too big. There is a [00:35:00] difference, but it's also a good way of testing the water. Awesome. But we'll share links to how to register for that and further information, but all the best with the next month or two. And thank you.

Thank you so much for sharing, sharing your lessons. I've really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed the chat. Thanks. Thanks, Scott.