Yahoo! EMEA GC Pierre Landy talks to Alex Aldridge about his management philosophy, the challenge of expansion into new countries and how dressing up as Santa got him on the road to the top

"It is my strong belief that you cannot be a lawyer and a manager at the same time," says Pierre Landy (pictured), general counsel of Yahoo!'s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) operations. "No matter the size or importance of the matter I let my direct reports handle it, obviously discussing with them where and when needed, but generally remaining at a helicopter view."

So the legal aspects of the deal Yahoo! struck with the Premier League in April to show highlights of matches was handled by the company's UK general counsel, Simon Citron. And the internet giant's overseeing of recent acquisition Maktoob, the Middle Eastern internet services company, is conducted by Dubai-based Middle East general counsel Nassib Abou-Khalil.

This approach frees Landy to go to bat for his team over issues like pay structures, with wins since he took up the general counsel position in 2005 including the extension of the Yahoo! bonus system to the company's lawyers. Now members of his team can earn up to an additional 35% of their salaries if they meet certain individual and companywide targets.

"In the past, leadership was based on micro management and control from the centre, with a focus on evaluating what went wrong. That has changed," continues Landy. "It is now about outcomes, with the leader crafting a vision for his or her team and then empowering them to contribute while focusing on the various strengths of the team members."

Landy – whose ambition when he retires is to set up a mentoring service for lawyers involved in management – fulfils this philosophy by going beyond delegating work to actually reassigning the budget he receives each year from Yahoo!'s US management team to each of the seven country general counsel who report to him. With no wider EMEA legal panel, it is then up to them what they do with it. "Who am I to judge whether an Italian lawyer gives good advice to my Italy GC? The relationship between the in-house lawyer and outside counsel is so intuitive that it would be absurd for me to step into that," he argues.

In the UK, Yahoo!'s law firm of choice is Bird & Bird, a relationship handled exclusively by Citron, with Clifford Chance also used for competition matters via a team split between London and Brussels. Landy says the guiding principle behind both relationships, and indeed all of Yahoo!'s dealings with external counsel, is "cost-effectiveness, knowledge and efficiency". "We want lawyers who understand our business, are extremely responsive and give us practical advice," he says.

However, with a team of 28 lawyers and paralegals across the EMEA region, the majority of legal work generated by the company in this part of the world is handled in-house. The fast-moving nature of the internet industry means this work often involves applying existing law to new products.

Yahoo!'s tie-up earlier this month with social networking site Facebook (which gives Yahoo! Mail users the option to have their Facebook feeds incorporated into their email accounts) is a recent example of such a situation, with the arrangement throwing up various privacy-related legal issues. Landy comments: "In this business we're always one step ahead of the regulator, which means you have to be creative as a lawyer, always thinking about the next step, and then adapting to new laws as they're created."

The Facebook deal is one of a number of recent new ventures launched by Yahoo! as it bids to redefine itself under the stewardship of chief executive Carol Bartz – who took the reins last January – after several years of losing ground to rival Google. Landy, who has been with Yahoo! in various roles for 10 years, says the arrival of Bartz has changed the atmosphere at the company: "One of the big things Carol keeps saying is 'don't be afraid to move forward'. And that attitude affects the legal team. It makes us think that maybe this is the time to revisit how we draft a contract, or perhaps we could make a 10-page non-disclosure agreement shorter and simpler."

Another part of Bartz's strategy is to extend Yahoo!'s presence in developing markets like Eastern Europe and Africa through the launch of simpler, easier to download versions of its current websites to suit the slower internet speeds in such jurisdictions.

He says the big challenge is to work out how to handle the legal elements of these new launches in the most efficient way possible.

"For example, we're expanding our presence in Romania, alongside many other jurisdictions. But I am not intending to have a Romanian lawyer. The question I face, then, is how we can meet the Romanian law challenges," he explains.

Not that Landy is overly troubled by these dilemmas. "I love to build," he continues. "When I arrived at Yahoo! there were just five lawyers working for the company in Europe. Figuring out how to develop a team and set it up to ensure it provides excellent legal service to our internal client is what I do best."

The road to Yahoo!

"Since childhood I've been fascinated by Disney, so naturally I wanted to work for them," explains Landy. "But having qualified as a lawyer, I saw that they didn't have any in-house legal positions available when I joined. Still, I retained hope. I got a job selling tickets and even dressing up as Santa in the Disneyland Paris theme park Christmas Parade – really, it was just a case of taking any job I could find.

"Working from the inside, I gave myself one year to get a legal job at Disney. It was 18 May 1992 when I started. And by 18 May 1993 I'd convinced them I'd be the perfect fit for an additional in-house lawyer, having worked in the park myself. The seven years I spent there, where I handled a lot of intellectual property matters, proved great training for an internet company like Yahoo!"

CAREER TIMELINE

1992 Completes law degree at Universite Paris X Nanterre

1993 Joins Disneyland Paris as in-house counsel

1996 Moves to Yahoo! France to take up general counsel position

2005 Becomes Yahoo! EMEA general counsel