With more than four decades of experience as an in-house leader and executive for several prominent global companies, Susie Flook is an expert at fostering collaboration among members of far-flung legal departments and other business teams within a firm.

Flook began her in-house career with The Coca-Cola Export Corp. in Sydney before joining CPC UK Ltd., where she focused on global merger and acquisition deals. She moved on to beer maker Guinness and helped the company prepare for a $22 billion merger deal with Grand Metropolitan. 

In 1999, Flook became the London-based group general counsel of The Body Shop International. She spent nearly 20 years overseeing the company's global legal teams, external service providers and 45 subsidiaries in 70 countries. 

Flook, who currently serves as an adviser and will be speaking Nov. 19 during the Women, Influence & Power in Law UK event in London, talked with Corporate Counsel on Tuesday. She discussed critical strategies for overseeing global legal departments, working closely with business teams outside the legal department to stay ahead of potential risks, and the persistent gender pay gap for in-house counsel.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Corporate Counsel: Can you share some of the keys for successfully overseeing legal departments for global companies?

Susie Flook: Every company is completely different. But when I was there [at The Body Shop], we were arranged by zones. I had lawyers responsible for each of those zones, and they reported to me. We had counsel sitting in countries in Europe because there was so much work coming out of those countries at that time. And the U.S. and Canada, more particularly the U.S., is very lawyer-dependent because the U.S. is a highly litigious country and class actions can come at you without you knowing, which requires a lot of management. My focus, apart from overseeing everything, was constantly dealing with third-party franchisees as well as all of our suppliers and contract manufacturers. My role also was to deal with the C-suite. I was dealing with the executive committee members on a daily basis and ensuring that their priorities were met by my team and myself on a daily basis. And my team was very close knit. One of the team members sent me a message the other day saying that she thought we were more like a good strong family than a leader and team members, which was a wonderful compliment. 

CC: How does a GC foster that type of environment or culture?

SF: I'd been there for a long time and my kids, as I used to call them, had all been with me. The longevity of service in my department probably exceeded, in terms of numbers, the longevity in any other department in the company. It's because I encouraged. I mentored. I educated. I promoted. I wanted everybody to meet their full potential. I encouraged them to go and take courses that were relevant to their job. I also made sure or tried to make sure that people weren't killing themselves. I used to say, "Don't let the company steal your weekend." Even though I used to work weekends. I think that they understood that I was there for them. I wanted them to succeed. I wanted them to be happy. And I wanted them to fulfill their potential. And they all knew that I had their backs. 

CC: How hands on were you with your regional in-house leaders? Did you give them a large degree of autonomy in running their regional legal departments? How often were you checking in with them?

SF: I was checking in with them on a weekly basis. Very important. You've got to know what's going on. So every week we had a one-hour time slot assigned. You don't just cast them adrift and let them go. Additionally, the executive committee member responsible for those regions or zones, I would also speak with them. So I would know what help they needed, what direction they needed in terms of legal issues. And I would also know from the executive director in charge of the region what his priorities and concerns were so that I was able to direct regional counsel to prioritize appropriately in accordance with the business' priority. It's very important to understand what's going on in the business across the world. And you can't do that by speaking to one person.  

CC: This might be a good segue into what you're going to be talking about at the conference, about engaging key stakeholders and wider business units to stay ahead of potential business risks.

SF: One of the key things that is a foundation to any such conversation is that anybody in an in-house legal counsel role must understand the business. Know your business. Know how the money works. Know where the profitability challenges are. You must know the team. If you know your business you'll know who your teams are, but you'll have to know who the people in those teams are. That is critical. With that broad-based knowledge, go and talk with the people in each of the teams across the company on a regular basis. Make sure they know who you are. Make sure you know what their roles are in that team. It also depends on your level of seniority. If you're the general counsel you start with the head guy. If you're a junior counsel, start more junior. But, of course, the head guy has to know who you are too, and that you're part of the GC's team. I also say to people, "If you're in the legal team, you should go as often as possible and sit with other teams for a day a week or every two weeks. Sit with them and do your work there and talk to everybody around and make sure you know what their issues and concerns are. If you don't communicate with people, you won't understand what the business challenges are."

CC: Have you found that some in-house counsel are reluctant to go and sit in another department because they don't want to seem intrusive?

SF: No. I think they might not have thought of doing it or that it was a weird thing to do. I don't think it's a weird thing to do. It's a wonderful thing to do. You've got to be able to be cross-functional. It needs to be encouraged by the general counsel and by senior management. I've found that senior management has no objection to it at all. The more everybody knows about the business, the more everybody is together about it, the better you're going to be at solving problems.

CC: Can you give me an example in which mingling with other business departments allowed you or your legal team to get out ahead of a potential risk?

SF: We ensured that our supply chain lawyer was included in the monthly management meetings of the supply chain team. He was then able to plan and warn in advance of potential risks or of what would be needed before they did what they were planning. It's prevention rather than cure, instead of sitting in the legal department and waiting for the problem to occur and then having to cure the problem. Prevention is always better than the cure. It's always less expensive than the cure. And it demonstrates the value of the legal department's ability to assist the company with its profitability. 

CC: Did you find that the arrangement started to work both ways after a while? In other words, did members of other teams become more comfortable about approaching the legal department with concerns?

SF: Absolutely. I had very close relationships with the executive committee, and they were very forthcoming, open, up-front and as keen as I was to prevent rather than have to cure. Now you know sometimes an objective would be set and you'd have to say, "Hang on a minute. If we go that way we're going to get in trouble." What you do is try to find an alternate route to reach the destination that's not going to get you into trouble. You will always have management chasing sales. That's their job. But nobody in management wants to have a major legal issue on their record. And if they're really smart, they'll work very closely with their general counsel to achieve their objectives while avoiding any legal obstacles that may be closely.  

CC: This last question goes back to what you were talking about earlier, encouraging members of your legal department to succeed and seek promotions. There was a study released in August that showed that the gender pay gap for U.S.-based GCs was widening. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the gap and what can be done.

SF: We now have companies having to publish materials on the gender pay gap under U.K. regulations. And it shows that there is still a gender pay gap. I think it is so wrong in the 21st century that there is still discrimination against women. I have grown up with discrimination against women in the workforce generally and in the law particularly, which I find most unfortunate. The multinational companies that I have worked for have been trying to show diversity, and indeed to a large extent are succeeding. But I do find that there is a gender pay gap in existence. It is wrong and shouldn't be there, and I don't know, other than regulation, what can be done about it. But I'm rather hoping that I will see the change coming over time.

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