Rhiannon Van Ross, Vice President, Global Leaders in Law, spoke with Corporate Counsel about the key priorities for today's global in-house leaders. Global Leaders in Law (GLL) is an exclusive network designed to support the global general counsel in their role as an impactful executive business leader. GLL and Corporate Counsel are both owned by parent company ALM Media, Inc.

Below Van Ross discusses, the need for general counsel to collaborate with the wider organisation and their external counsel, the strategic necessity to increase the diversity of thought within in-house teams, crisis management, and the continuing shift towards the general counsel as a business leader as highlighted in the recent GC to CEO moves.

Corporate Counsel (CC): What is keeping the in-house community up at night? 

Rhiannon Van Ross (RVR): We have found, by talking to our Global Leaders in Law (GLL) members and through global studies, that the main unifying priority for general counsel is the desire to be a thought leader. Today's general counsel, do not want to be pigeonholed into a solely legal role, but want to – and are managing to – expand outwards into CEO positions and other executive roles. This naturally leads to a necessity for wider business acumen.

Within the context of thought leadership, our GLL members have expressed their dedication to diversity as a key priority. Diversity of people means diversity of thought; if the legal team has diversity of thought, they will add key strategic value to wider business decisions.  With a diverse team and, where needed, diverse external counsel, engagement and collaboration with the wider organisation will become a natural part of day-to-day business.

Finally, the most common priorities for our members are crisis management and data privacy. As would be expected both are becoming keener as reliance on the digital world takes over; both in the context of crisis management, as more and more crises become public property, and data, as the means of cyber-attack increase daily.

CC: How does Global Leaders in Law address the key priorities for general counsel? 

RVR: Global Leaders in Law is an organisation that was started over ten years ago by a group of friends – and a group of general counsel. They would get together for dinner to discuss the universal problems they faced across their various industries. Now we have members in six continents, in most of the major cities around the world and across a range of industries from pharmaceutical to fashion. The dinners are still a central part to membership, but we have adapted the offering enormously to reflect the main concerns of general counsel around the world, and continue to as time goes on.

Over time, as the focus has shifted towards the general counsel as a business leader, we have introduced various methods for our members to further their own abilities at our Mini-MBA programs, Leadership Days and, launching this year, GLL Mastermind which is one-on-one media training with a former BBC broadcaster and communications expert. Equally, we have endeavoured to inspire general counsel with the soft skills that are so integral to their role, with our two annual Global General Counsel Forums at which we invite some of the top speakers around the world to talk on non-legal subjects; integrity, cyber-hacking, psychology, communications.

Of course, the role of general counsel is inherently a lonely one, and so at the centre of our group is the importance of connections and friendship – which, while celebrated at all our events, is especially true of the dinners we run around the world. These ensure that if our members face industry crises, they will have a network of people to call upon for their advice.

CC: What is your favourite GLL memory? 

RVR: It has to be our Global Forum at Villa d'Este, Lake Como in 2019! The weather was beautiful, the speakers were amazing, but most important of all were the firm friendships forged – and of course, the dance moves in the d'Este club…

Global General Counsel Forum 2019.

CC: What does GLL have planned for next year and what are you most excited about? 

RVR: We will be launching a second Global Forum to go alongside our International Forum in Italy – located in Napa Valley in the autumn. We thought it was only fair that our US-based general counsel should have something a little easier to get to!

We are always looking to learn from our general counsel and understand what they want, where their interests lie, as it's a role that's always changing and we're excited to see what the future brings.