Mastering the legal landscape of the future
As our survey shows, legal leaders across a range of sectors must learn to master unprecedented change across the MENA region.
The role of the GC and legal decision-maker is taking on a crucial role for companies across the region, as businesses play catch-up with a fast-changing regulatory environment and the expanding importance of ESG.
To navigate the current legal landscape, we believe there are four steps that companies should take to ensure that legal leaders are equipped to meet the new demands of the ever-changing legal landscape.
New legal workstreams such as ESG and technological change require a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses a range of legal skills and demands far greater collaboration.
To meet the demands of the legal landscape of the future, legal leaders must learn to master a broad range of skills – particularly in regard to leadership, empathy and innovation. Companies must play their part in developing the skills of legal decision-makers and in-house teams, ensuring they are equipped to meet the needs of the future.
These skills will empower legal leaders to collaborate and exert influence across the company – providing powerful support to boards as they execute strategic growth plans.
As our survey shows, ESG has become a topic that is impossible to ignore. Legal decision-makers play a central role in the implementation of policies as internal ESG discussions transition away from corporate communications and into the realm of legal and compliance.
ESG risk and compliance now cuts across every aspect of corporate activity, playing a key role in project and transactional due diligence, featuring in loan documentation, impacting investment strategies and creating countless new legal obligations. Companies must increasingly take a whole-business approach to these risks and invest in the ESG competencies within the legal team to ensure effective ESG risk management and compliance.
Companies across the MENA region are recognising the power of technology to underpin growth and deliver business efficiencies. The same results can be delivered within legal teams if leaders take the time to understand and embrace legal technology in order to reap the rewards of innovation.
Our survey identifies a growing number of legal decision-makers using technology to help them better identify, measure and mitigate risks, while more organisations are embracing e-signing tools, cloud-based databases, document automation and collaboration technology in their legal teams.
These innovations are removing administrative tasks from in-house lawyers and freeing them up to focus on far more value-adding strategic initiatives. Many legal tech solutions were stress-tested during the pandemic and demonstrated their use cases in a way that suggests greater adoption is inevitable, presenting competitive advantages for early movers.
The pace of regulatory change in the MENA region is unprecedented as various jurisdictions move at speed to significantly enhance their legal frameworks. While these developments are to be welcomed and embraced as they strengthen the global competitiveness of countries across MENA, staying on top of new laws is challenging, and will require the strengthening of legal capabilities.
As the fast-changing regulatory climate becomes a boardroom issue, legal leaders must be empowered to exert influence at the highest level in their company. Investment in the legal resource as an invaluable strategic enabler will significantly strengthen the organisation’s ability to identify and mitigate legal, regulatory and compliance risk.
The key findings from the report were brought to life by an expert panel, who are industry specialists from some of the region's key sectors. The discussion was moderated by none other than Richard Dean, Dubai Eye Radio Presenter and Public Speaker and our esteemed panellists included: Arturo Ortiz de Zárate, General Counsel MEA, IBM, Fauzia Kehar, Division Counsel, MENA, Citibank, Izabella Szadkowska, Partner, Corporate Structuring, Al Tamimi & Company, Jake Barnard, General Counsel, GEMS Education and Mona Madi, Legal Director, Head of Legal & Compliance IMEA, Henkel Jebel Ali FZCO.
The group's personal experiences really shed some light on the growing importance of the role of the legal decision maker.
Captain Abdulla Al Hayyas, Acting Director of Marine Transportation Affairs at the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, UAE
Jake Barnard, General Counsel at GEMS Education
Nasreen Bulos, Regional General Counsel for MENAT at HSBC
Urvaksh Doctor, Senior Legal Counsel, MEA at FIS (Dubai)
Fraser MacKinven, General Counsel at Flash Entertainment
Mona Madi, Legal Director – Head of Legal & Compliance IMEA at Henkel Jebel Ali FZCO
Amelito Mutuc, General Counsel (Business Development) at ACWA Power
Goktug Seckiner, Managing Director at Dogus Group
