Episode 18: What a CEO needs from their GC

03/07/23 • 8 min

In today’s episode, we discuss (some of) the qualities of a successful general counsel. At an Openli Community event, Stine asked Trustpilot CEO Peter Mühlmann what he looks for in a GC. His answer? Listen to find out.

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript:

[00:00 - 00:16] Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal. Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs.
[00:16 - 00:36] If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it. For more inspiration, go to Openli.com slash community. Welcome to this episode from me, your host, Stine.
[00:37 - 01:00] You're listening to the podcast called Inspiring Legal, and you might have heard about me talking a little before. Today, well, it's me talking, but it's actually more me referring to a conversation I had with a CEO that I really like, that I have a close relationship with.
[01:00 - 01:17] And that is the CEO and founder, Peter Hultman from Trustpilot. So I worked together with Peter for six years. I came on board Trustpilot when there were 70 employees. And the first guy I met was Peter.
[01:18 - 01:37] He gave me a big hug the day I came in. He was wearing the classic, you know, Silicon Valley t-shirt, tennis socks, and some classic H2O slippers. And I was kind of like, OK, nice to meet you.
[01:37 - 01:53] You're very different from what I've known at the law firm, where everybody was wearing, you know, the classic blue shirt and the nice jacket. Maybe tie if you're going out for customer meetings, but otherwise, you know, the suit.
[01:53 - 02:24] So I met Peter and we bonded in the sense that he was a person and he is a person that is caring, outgoing, and always honest in his feedback. So not that long ago, I asked Peter to join an event we had here in Copenhagen for some of the members in the community.
[02:25 - 03:04] And I asked Peter to give feedback, feedback to the community on how he would like his general counsel to give good advice. What he preferred his general counsel to do when facing, let's call it complicated situations, and how the general counsel, in his opinion, get a place around the decision making table, you know, make a difference, become that business stakeholder that so many of us, well, are, but also would like to be.
[03:04 - 03:21] And continue improving on. So I asked Peter, wouldn't you just join this event and tell people some of the things that you've been saying to me for so many years? And by the way, it's not just me and Peter having a conversation.
[03:22 - 03:42] It was Peter having a conversation with the entire room. And it was super insightful. And I think what he said was very common to what CEOs are looking for. What Peter said that he's looking for is a general counsel that understands the business.
[03:43 - 04:02] That was his key element. As he said, like, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. Jump on customer calls if sales is an important element of your business. Sit down with the marketing team on one of their weekly meetings and hear how they're generating leads.
[04:03 - 04:26] So that when you're having these executive management meetings, you, as the general counsel, know more about the business than the majority of the people around that table. That also means that you will be able to identify risk in a completely different way than what you would otherwise expect from the general counsel.
[04:27 - 04:56] But it also makes you more appreciated by your peers, but also by your CEO. What Peter then said, in addition to that, was when I'm asking for your opinion on something, I don't need a long memo. I don't need long, kind of like, on one hand, you know, and on the other hand, well, I need you to tell me yes or no.
[04:57 - 05:16] I trust that you know better than I. I trust that you, with all your knowledge of our business and the legal rules, are much better equipped to make that decision than me.
[05:17 - 05:34] And of course, sometimes decisions need to be escalated to the CEO. So when you escalate it, explain why it is that this scenario is being escalated and come up with your proposal.
[05:35 - 05:57] Don't leave it as, this is the, you have the blue pill and the red pill. Which one do you want to take? Tell me what pill would you prefer to take? And then, of course, me as the CEO is responsible for, if we take that blue pill, that we've taken in the pros and the cons.
[05:58 - 06:16] But I want to hear what you think. I want your opinion. And then what Peter also said is that, have opinions. That's not a bad thing.
[06:17 - 06:33] But remember, it's not just about saying yes or no. It's about being there for the business. And that your management group is the most important group. That is your peers.
[06:34 - 06:50] It's not your legal team that is the most important. It is not you as the general counsel that is the most ...

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript:

Previous Episode

Episode 17: Legal Ops with Matilde Montanari, Legal Operations Officer at TomTom

Legal Operations is on everyone's lips. But what is it actually all about? What are the best practices, what are some quick wins - and how does one go about pursuing a career in Legal Ops? Join us in a conversation with TomTom's Legal Operations Officer, Matilde Montanari, as we dive into the specifics of this fast-moving legal field.

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript:

[00:00 - 00:16] Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal. Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs.
[00:16 - 00:35] If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it. For more inspiration, go to Openli.com slash community. Today, I am joined by Matilde Montanari.
[00:35 - 00:52] I hope I pronounced it correctly. Welcome Matilde. Thank you very much for having me today. So Matilde, for the listeners out there, they might not know you, but you have a very interesting background when we're talking about legal operations.
[00:52 - 01:08] And again, this is a topic that is on a lot of people's minds, but maybe not necessarily that familiar. So I was thinking, what about telling the audience a little bit about who you are and your background and maybe how you got into legal operations.
[01:09 - 01:26] Yeah, absolutely. So, hi Matilde. Perfect pronunciation for my surname, Montanari. I'm currently based in Amsterdam and I'm the legal operations officer at TomTom. TomTom is currently a technology company.
[01:26 - 01:43] Maybe most of you might remember for the GPS. Everyone at some point had a TomTom GPS and it was actually very revolutionary. But yeah, now they move more in the space of B2B and building maps and licensing maps to other companies.
[01:44 - 02:02] My background, I'm Italian from Pisa, so from Tuscany. I've graduated in law and then started in, worked in house for a law firm in private practice for a law firm for a couple of years.
[02:03 - 02:21] But after a couple of years working there, I soon realized actually that I really wanted to have a bit more business exposure. And then maybe that wasn't my actual path. But I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And I wanted to go back to study.
[02:21 - 02:40] So I found and I did an LLM here in Leiden, which I highly advise everyone to visit. It's an amazing little town in the Netherlands. It's a student city, very, very, very nice. And after that, I found, ended up finding a job as a legal commercial consultant in MessageBird,
[02:40 - 02:58] which is a tech startup, very, yeah, very hectic, like really the classic startup environment that everyone thinks and everyone sees in the movies. So it was very, very fun and very, very exciting. Back then, my GC was very into legal operations.
[02:58 - 03:14] Then in the back, it was very, very, you soon realized that to scale a team, you also have to have the proper tech stack and tech setup to actually support your team, especially when you're going at that speed and that growth.
[03:16 - 03:37] So you really wanted someone that, yeah, could focus on ops as well. And I've always been very interested in operations, like in general, my friends, they always like to say that, yeah, I like to fix things and that's the reality. So I started focusing 50% of my time on legal ops.
[03:38 - 03:55] And then, yeah, I fell in love and I was like, oh my God, I want to do legal operations. So I went, my next step in the career was indeed to find a 100% focus on legal operations position. And I moved to booking where I was doing legal operations by financial management.
[03:55 - 04:12] So yeah, budget, external counsel. So I need such a big team and inspiring team. That was very, very interesting. So yes, that's a few words, my life, I end up here. So from booking.com,
[04:12 - 04:32] you then moved into TomTom where you're now the legal ops officer. Just because legal ops is for some new and maybe also a little undefinable. Could you maybe just give us a little insight into what are
[04:32 - 04:50] you doing as a legal ops officer? You're probably doing so much, but what is that? Yeah, definitely. So I think indeed it's quite new and the entire legal operations community is still working and trying to define
[04:50 - 05:07] what we really working on. But I like to approach legal operations as, I mean, it's still an operations role and we have seen operations role in other different departments. So when I approached it and when I was the lead, when I started my work at TomTom,
[05:07 - 05:25] I really wanted to be inspired or take inspiration from other departments. So I really approach it as the classic way you do operations by focusing on data and technology, people and processes. So that's the kind of like three big cores that I like to focus
[05:25 - 05:42] on. And then under that, obviously there are sub topics or a sub focus. But yeah, I would say that in few words...

Next Episode

Episode 19: Finding your superpower with Chad Aboud

Today we're talking to Chad Aboud - the lawyer on a journey to make Legal more enjoyable and fulfilling. You might have seen him across social media, or you might not know him (yet), but one thing is for certain: after listening, you'll have a new perspective on your career and hands-on tips on how to find your superpower as a lawyer.

Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal.

Full episode transcript:

[00:00 - 00:17] Welcome back to another episode of Inspiring Legal. So today we are joined by a person that is all about making life the most enjoyable that
[00:17 - 00:34] you can possibly get out of it. He is amazing. He is motivating. He is energetic. And he is all about combining happiness with lowering. So welcome, Chad.
[00:34 - 00:54] Thank you so much for having me and for that warm welcome. We will today talk about being happy and working in-house or at a law firm and how you can combine that if it's even doable. But before we start talking about that, maybe Chad, you can just tell people a little bit
[00:54 - 01:09] about your background and what you do today. Sure. Thank you. So I'm in Toronto, Canada, and I started my career about 12 years ago in a big law firm in Toronto, and I was helping public companies acquire other companies and raise money.
[01:09 - 01:25] And so I was doing that for about five years. And the training was amazing. I think any young professional services training skills are great. It forces you to learn how to think quickly, how to analyze, how to do a ton of work in a very short amount of time.
[01:25 - 01:41] And I valued that and I appreciated that and worked with some wonderful people. But I think at the same time, I really noticed that I was drawn to two elements that probably weren't the core of that job. One was I really liked training students and other lawyers as they started their career.
[01:41 - 01:58] I love being part of the student committee and the hiring committee loved that. And I also was looking at deal structures as I was doing them and saying, well, there's like 25% of the deal structure that seems irrelevant to the value to the client, but takes a lot of time and it's very painful for the lawyers and nobody cares.
[01:58 - 02:14] So let's wipe that out and then just do 75% of the work, still charge the same rate. Bottom line is amazing. Less work. Isn't this beautiful? And I think, in retrospect, as a young lawyer at a major law firm, suggesting how important it is about training the students and changing deal structures, I think a lot of folks were
[02:14 - 02:33] a little bit confused and I think that made me confused. And so what I realized was this probably wasn't going to be the future for me because I could tell my nature and energy was drawn elsewhere. And so I actually resigned from big law without necessarily knowing what I was going to do next and traveled around the world with my partner for six months and a personal professional
[02:33 - 02:49] journey. And then when I came back, went into industry, one of Canada's largest brands. And so retail, e-tail, expansion into the US with a retail footprint. And it was amazing because I'm a pretty curious cat. So I really like to like, what's a marketing team up to? What's the privacy team up to? I love that.
[02:49 - 03:05] And I love learning different types of law. And so that actually, it made a lot more sense to me for the first time because it was less about the law. Of course, I stole a lawyer, but it was a lot more around, well, we've got an operation to run. And so how do we find the right kind of law plus business, create relationships?
[03:05 - 03:23] It just felt more natural to me. And so I love that. Love learning how to be an in-house lawyer. But then after three years, I kind of had this same drive again about like, but I want to create the brand or the way or the relationships in my way. And so for the last three and a half years until recently, I became general counsel of
[03:23 - 03:39] this international tech company where we created the legal function and built out the team and brought in legal tech and it was part of the leadership team and it's an incredible journey, right? You get to build it the way you want to build it, with the parameters of the company's goals. But that was very motivating for me.
[03:39 - 03:54] But even then I realized I care the most about two things. One, helping people find the most that's in themselves and two, making their way forward easier. And while those things are very helpful for me as a general counsel, it wasn't the core
[03:54 - 04:09] of the job. And so I resigned in September because I knew I needed to follow that nature. And at the beginning of this year, I launched my own consulting and coaching business for the legal industry because through my journey, I just know that we can be successful and
[04:09 - 04:27] happy and fulfilled. It doesn't have to...