The Evolution of Legal Ops with Bob Mignanelli at Haleon

Foreign.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Pearls on Gloves Off. I'm your host, Mary o'. Carroll. Today with me is my friend Bob Mignanelli, who is COO and VP for Legal at Helion. He has overall responsibility for the legal department's operations, centralized contracting function, and the provision of legal support to the company's technology and procurement teams. If you think you've never heard of Helion, you're wrong. You have. It is just the new name for GSK Consumer after it spun out last year. Halion is actually the largest consumer healthcare business in the world, so you definitely know best selling brands like Sensodyne, Polydin, Panadol, Theraflu, Advil, Centrum, Tums, Chapstick, and countless, countless others. Before Halion, Bob spent nearly two decades at Pearson, an education, publishing and assessment company, where he was most recently senior Vice President and COO for Legal and AGC technology strategy and operations. And before all that, Bob held various positions including corporate counsel for a tech startup, regulatory consultant for Arthur Anderson, and attorney in private practice in Washington, dc. Welcome, Bob. It's so wonderful to have you here today.

Hi, Mary. It's great to see you again and thanks for having me.

Well, I love to see the legal COO own VP titles for Legal Ops, so thank you for always carrying that flag for all of us.

Oh, no, I appreciate it. And it's super important, I think, for us as an industry and us as a function to be able to carry that title. And for me, as you and I have talked a little bit about it, I. I work for an extremely progressive general counsel who allows me to carry that title and actually gives me the autonomy and really the bandwidth to operate within that title. So for me, it's been a great ride. And the title is not just a title. It actually really is reflective of the opportunities that I get to have every day and how I get to help steer the department a little bit.

Exactly. And that's so important. And we have a lot to talk about today and I'm going to jump around a bit, but I definitely want to talk about your journey at one point. But one of the main reasons, as you know, that I really wanted to have you on the show is because we both feel very passionate about the need for this role to be more strategic and to transition into a strategic one. And what does that mean? And we've discussed Legal Ops has grown a lot, right. In recent years in awareness and popularity and scope. And I think we've reached a pretty important and critical juncture where the future of this Role is really going to depend on where we as a community take things next. And there's, of course, a part of the role that is really operational. It's tactical, it's a supporting role to the department. And that's important. And I believe you do have to start there in a lot of ways. But then you really have to quickly pivot right after you've successfully set things up to run the day to day, to start positioning yourself as that true partner to the leadership team and to be driving the priorities, the strategies, the direction of the department. And I think that's what you and I both mean when we say, you know, quote, unquote, strategic. But I certainly don't want to put words in your mouth. Tell me how you're seeing, you know, where we are as a profession, what it means to be strategic to you.

Yeah, and I think you're absolutely right. The profession has really grown in size and in maturity over the last five years, five, eight, 10 years. And it's always been around. It's just, it was never. It never had a label, it never really had coalescence of bringing these activities together. But I think you're absolutely right. It's really, for me, and I was thinking about this before I got on today, there are a lot of tactical things that we must do as a legal operations team and department, and those are really the foundational, the foundation of what we bring to the department and bring to this. I always say to my team and my peers across legal and anybody who listen to me, quite frankly, is one of our key drivers in legal operations is for me, is take the sand out of the gears. I want my legal professionals, all of them, to be able to deliver legal services 100% of the time to the company to help drive its objectives and manage risk. And I look at our teams as taking on all of those tasks the same to the gears that I don't want my legal professionals doing, so we can add that value. So you're right. The very basics of outside counsel, management and contracts management and project management and technology roadmaps in the States and all of those things, we have to actually do this. But for me, when I think about all of those, those are just pieces. Those are all pieces that should roll up into a strategy that we, as the leaders of these departments, are driving in conjunction with our chief legal officers or general counsels for the business. So for me, I always think about it when I start, every year or every quarter as we sit down, I sit down with my GC and really Think about where are we going to go in the near term and then the midterm and the longer term, what's our strategy? How does our strategy line up to where the business is headed? What do we need to do both from a strategic perspective and then a tactical perspective to help drive that strategy, all while making the lives of my legal professionals better. I want them to be able to come in and not to have to worry about administrative tasks or where do I get a project manager or how do like, oh, we found this technology, so how do I get it implemented? All of those tactical things feed into the strategy.

Right.

But I think for us, and you and I have talked about this a lot, is, Yeah, I think, I think our profession of legal operations is really at, it's at a juncture and I think we as leaders really need to decide how do we want to lead this discipline in the industry for those who will come behind us. And it's, you know, I've been doing this, I've been practicing law a very long time. I've had the benefit of being in the legal operations field for not quite as long, but it's really about where do we want to take this? And I think we're at a crossroads. We can go down a path to say, well, we're really just an administrative group or an operational group that sits sort of over to the side and we'll do all those tactical things to help the department and maybe help the business a little bit. Or we can do all of that, which is one part of what we do, and then take the really important part, which is help not just drive strategy, but help formulate it. And it's not just with our chief legal officers, but it's with those other parts of the business that we often interact with, whether it's tech and finance and procurement and hr. How do we, it's really, I think, up to us to put ourselves out there, take the chance, you know, we, we have to be a little brave in this to sort of stick our heads out. And that's, for me, it's leading within legal, but also leading through the building of those relationships and becoming a respected leader throughout the organization. You, you want those folks that you, your teams work with on a day to day basis that are outside legal, say, you know what, we're putting a project together. Let me call Mary because, you know, I know that, you know, not only is Mary leading, you know, legal operations and driving strategy for them, what a really good partner she is for us. And so let's get her to use a very cliched statement, let's get her at the table. Well, we want folks to think of us like that.

That's right.

It's up to us to do that. It's up to those who sit in my role or who are heads of legal operations or who may be double hatting in some other role, whether it's chief of staff and head of operations or deputy general counsel, head of operation. It's. We have, we have positional authority to do this.

That's right.

We have organizational authority to do this. It's up to us as to whether or not we want to take the initiative to use that authority to help drive the profession to where I think it should go.

Yes. And a couple really important words that you use there. Take the initiative. Right. Because this isn't something we all say we want to seat at the table, we want to be more strategic. But then people sit around and wait for that direction to come to them and no one is going to tap you on the shoulder and say, hey, please come join us for the strategic planning conversation. Like you need to look out. And we have a really unique role in that. We are working so cross functionally with all those partners. So in addition to being in the leadership suite where you're hearing kind of where the company is going and where the legal department needs to go, you're also involved deeply with all the partners across the company to know what's happening from a finance perspective, from an it, hr, like all these things that you can bring together, we're really uniquely suited to drive this strategy and to have an opinion. So like you said, we have to take the initiative to suggest, to propose those things.

And I think you're absolutely right about where we sit in the organization. Legal departments are really the connective tissue that run throughout the organization. And you just mentioned if you think about everybody we touch, that we come in contact, you just think about your week. You know, I have, I've spent time just in the last couple of days with finance, with procurement, with tech, my HR folks, with some of my, you know, with, you know, chatting with some of my peers who spend time with the leaders of our general managers of business units in the regions. We touch everybody. And that those touch points, we have a choice to make with those touch points. Are we simply reactive to those touch points or do we care and feed them and do we take the initiative to build out those relationships into your point? Put our hands up. I mean, we shouldn't be shy. The worst somebody can tell us is no, we can put our hands up and say, hey, I'd like to join that strategic planning meeting. Or I think I've got something out in a very nice corporate way, or maybe not so nice way. We may be told, well, thanks, but you know, we, we will get back to you. Okay, but then you say to yourself, well, why did I get that reaction? Do I need to do more on the relationship building side? Is there something else that I need to leverage? But I think more often than not, folks will welcome us in. And I think they do that because they realize we have more to bring to it than just a legal viewpoint. Because if you think about what we do, it's, you know, we're legal, we're legal operations. You know, we run operational in strategy groups. And I, I always look at strategy and operations. I've tried to move away from describing my group as legal operations and it's hard. There's a lot of inertia out there with that term. But I think about, you know, my team is strategy and operations. Whether, whether that's the official label or not, that's what we do. So how do we then take that mindset and bring it to the rest of us? Because we do a lot of things that aren't exactly legal in nature. Think about what we do. We redesign processes, we help drive technology, we run projects. All of those are business attributes and traits which give us an insight into the business. And it allows us to bring those, you know, those qualities to a broader cross functional team with a legal lens on it. And then, and by doing that, the perception changes in the organization. It's not just, oh, they're in legal, I gotta go check with them. It's no, it's, you know, they, they're illegal. They understand they can help us, you know, drive objectives and balance risk. But they also have all these other skills and traits that make them great team members. And we want them there at the start of a project so that we get a better result. For me, if we can accomplish that, then we win. Like it's, I know it's not about winning and losing, but we've achieved something that probably six, seven, eight years ago, many of us may not have thought possible or may not have like that probably when we, at least we weren't even thinking about.

Wasn't even a goal then, right?

No, that was exactly it. I was just about to say when I first started with legal operations, probably like everybody else, I took it on. In addition to other things that I was doing. I'VE always maintained the legal practice inside the company, but that's just from a personal perspective. I've always wanted to do that, but I took it on in addition to something because I think we all did. We saw a need and we said, hey, you know, I want to work with that team. I'm interested in that area, whether it's. I'm really interested in running budgets and finance and doing strategic planning, or I've got a real interest in technology or how we've got this outside counsel program where we got all this outside counsel spend. How do I help make it better? So we all got into it. I think from an adjacency back then, we probably weren't thinking, well, my ultimate goal here is to help drive strategy and work with teams across the company. I think we all realized that pretty quickly that we could because of the things that we were doing right and.

The things that we're doing it. You're so close to so much of what's happening that you can't help. I mean, I think in all of our nature and coming into a role like this, you have a little bit of looking for issues and then just fixating on. I must fix that. Right. I need to get my hands on that and do something about that. So when you're looking. When you get involved in so many parts of the company, you know, and trying to showcase the value of legal, you start to think about the bigger picture. You start to say, well, I. It's not now, it's not just a legal department issue. I'm seeing now. I'm seeing a company goal, a company issue like, let me help think about how to achieve those things. And again, you have to take the initiative. You have to push forward.

No, I think you. I think you're absolutely right. And you know, I haven't. All of us get into this because I think we're problem solvers and we like. I also think there's. There's a trait in all of us that we like to build things. I know that for me, I really like to build things, but I like to build things, whether it's service centers or teams or solutions to help, you know, drive the business forward. Because we all leave a legacy. Like we all leave. You know, we're all going to leave something behind from every place that we go. And I think we all want to leave it better than we found it. And, you know, we want to do it. And it's not driven from an ego perspective or anything like that. It's just, I think to your point, we see problems. We're like, well, we can fix that. Being able to stand up and say, we can fix that. Now, that does take a little bit of ego or confidence, however you want to frame it. But I think we. I think that's in all of us who do this, who live in this world, who do this job and, you know, are part of legal operations and strategy teams. It's because we want to make things better.

Yeah.

Because if we didn't, then we would just leave it the way it is. Look, it's. Things will run. You and I both know that legal departments will run. Lawyers have been practicing law, whether internally or as outside counsel, the same way for the last hundred years. Quite frankly, the legal department doesn't move very quickly, or the legal profession is a move very quickly along the sort of advancement curve. But I think we can. We're change agents. I mean, and I think that's something else that's in all of us. It's not only do we. Do we have this desire to make things better, but I think there's a piece of all of us that we know. We're change agents and we're willing to do that. We're willing to stand up and say, hey, follow me on this journey. I've got this idea, I think, and this is where we can go, and this is where you can take it. That takes a fair amount of courage, especially to stand up in front of a GC or clo, their teams, your tech group, go run the gauntlet on a technology architecture or infrastructure review or investment review board, your finance team, to go ask for money, and how do you build that business case? So there's a fair amount of courage that it takes to do that. But I always think that every time that we step out and do that, and more often than not, when I talk to people, they're successful in doing it. And in those instances where it doesn't go our way, we learn something from it and then we can come back.

That's right.

And it gives us. And also those instances give us, I think, some perspective on, okay, should I start sort of small? Should I start sort of medium? Can I go something audacious?

Yeah.

You know, try to drive that. And you and I have talked a little bit about it. You always hear when we go to conferences or we sit, we get together as teams of professionals. I always tell people, start with the easy ones. I mean, I know it sounds super basic, but, you know, but it becomes that sort of that flywheel effect, and it Builds our credibility and it builds our courage and it builds our stature in, in the organization and then we're able to do more. And we need all of that because the headwinds that we face. Right, right. Getting this stuff done from a change management perspective and whatever, you know, budgets, tech, all those other things, we know we're going to hit a lot of headwinds. So to be, you know, so to be driven by some of those successes we've had previously, I think in those sort of dark moments where you're like, oh, why did I get myself in this? Because I have those. It's like those. There are days where I'm like, the never ending journey. Today's not a good day. And the never ending journey, but it keeps us moving and it keeps us moving because we know that what we're doing is the right thing. It's the best thing for our enterprises. And I'm not very good at this, but when we look back to see what we've done, it's sort of impressive as to what.

Yeah.

And I'll, I'll admit I'm not very good at, you know, the look back. I'm always like, what's the next thing? Where are we going next? You know, I'm very, very fortunate to be surrounded by a group of professionals that will check me out. Hey, you know, we just got all this stuff done.

So, I mean, you're in a very special situation where your GC has your back. You've worked together at, you know, various companies now, but you and I have been at events and conferences together where, you know, we're talking about this topic and everyone's saying, well, I don't have that kind of gc. I don't have a seat at the table. I want to be more strategic. But I'm. Nobody sees me that way. What can I do? And I'd love to hear your thoughts. What I often tell people is, again, you have to take the initiative. You're not going to get invited to the table. But maybe every quarter, every end of the year, do that look back or do the here's what I'm hearing. Or let's just say you mentioned earlier, what if you ask to be part of the strategic planning meeting and they say, you know, for some reason, sorry, we don't want you to join that. Well, I would, you know, my response to that would be like, okay, totally understand that. How about you and I sync afterwards and you can give me, you know, the feedback or the download of kind of what happened and what the strategic initiatives are at the company level. Take that back and then say, okay, based on that, have another sync and have your presentation about. Here are the top three initiatives that I think we're not currently working on that we could. And here are the things that we are working on. Does this feel right to you? Let's talk about. Are these the things that are keeping you up? Does this sound like where we should focus our efforts to have the biggest impact? That is a strategic conversation that starts to get you working on the right things. So what kind of advice do you give the folks that come our way?

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And you did. I think you're right to point out I am very, very fortunate. I have been extremely fortunate for almost the last decade. I have had the privilege to work with Bjarne Tillman as my general counsel at Pearson from 2014 until the time I left, and then here at Halion when I came over in 2021. So I do have a unique situation. And it's not lost upon me that I'm very fortunate with the situation that. Because there's a lot of trust that's been built over the last decade. We view the world, I think, in this space very similarly in where we want to go and what we want to drive. But I also recognize that not everybody has that. And to your point, so how do you get there? Because we have side accounts. And I do hear people say, I'm having trouble getting traction with my general counsel. I'm having trouble. Or I have my general counsel, she has my back and she wants me to go do these things, but then I'm having trouble getting traction with her leads.

Right. Yeah, exactly.

The lt. Because that's really the team that you need the support from because they'll help you drive through. So I think you're absolutely right. I think it's. For me, it's a couple of things. One is about relationships. Build those relationships across those people who have both direct and indirect power to help drive decisions and who have influence. But the other two is, to your point, identify where you see pain areas and think about solutions for those pain areas and where, if we develop a solution for a pain area, or it may not be a pain area, but just maybe an opportunity that somebody sees and then go have those conversations with the, you know, with those stakeholders and say, look, you know, I noticed this, or we're, you know, in working with, you know, these three folks across the department, we keep seeing this issue pop up and, you know, we can Help solve that. And what do you think of my solution? Get their buy in. Because as you and I both know, having bringing people along the process instead of dragging them with you is really key to driving your success. And then again, you'll start to see, you'll get small successes and they'll start to see you as somebody who's a solution provider. And then the risk becomes, you become a victim of your own success. Because once that one person, once one person sees it, they, you know, they're, you know, on the LT that says, okay, you know, that wow. You know, Mary and her team did this awesome, you know, project for, you know, Jane and her IP group. Now I'm going to go ask to see if they can help me with that as well. It becomes, starts to pick up speed, you start to gain momentum. But I think you're absolutely right. Having trouble getting, you know, breaking into those groups or getting the seat at the strategy table. Then you start small and you do it with individual stakeholders. You start to develop projects and then they start to see your value and success and then the invitations start to come. But it's hard because again, it takes a fair amount of courage and initiative and ambition and you've got to be ready to be told no and not get discouraged. And I think for me, one of the biggest things is I often tell people is don't get discouraged. Just think of a different way to come at it. And it also might be timing. I think timing is really, really important with initiatives and trying to help drive things. You may have an awesome idea, it may have incredible benefits, but you may be living in a macro environment inside of your company where the timing on it just isn't right. You may have teams that are shifting around and it just doesn't work right now. That's not an indictment on your project or you or your initiative. It's. It's just where we live. So, you know, be resilient, be flexible.

Yeah.

Be able to sort of move with the things and also know your audience, know the environment that you're living in. Know the audience across your stakeholders and who can, you know, who can drive help you drive decisions and who. And know your detractors know, know you're not detractors, but know those who are going to be resistant. And I actually, I actually like to find the people who I think are going to be the most resistant and I work with them just as much because they will point things out to you that you don't see because we all have blind spots. These projects or these initiatives, everything. And then we think they're awesome, but they're our babies. So little blind spots. So getting that feedback from both sides is really helpful.

Yeah. The timing thing you mentioned is so true. I mean, I can think of so many times in my career where I felt so strongly about a project and initiative, something that we had to do, even gone through making a proposal, only to have it not only shot down, but just, just like, no, don't. Don't even bring that up again, ever. And then what, four, five, six years later it starts to happen, someone else brings it up and it becomes like the top initiative of the year. And, you know, at no point do I go, told you so. You know, you kind of like, I see why. You know, you start to realize, yes, I was, you know, early in bringing that up. So I was, I was right in that there is a problem that we needed to fix. But the stars were not aligned, the people weren't in the right place, the company wasn't ready. You know, all the things needed to be. The timing is so critical. Just the stuff that you have to set up to get everyone ready. And maybe that's change management, maybe that's just natural course of business.

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. And then I think the point that you just hit on as well is your leadership. All of our leaders have different things that are important to them.

Yes.

And different things that drive them. And that could be intrinsic to them or that could be coming from their C suite or the board or what's really important there. And sometimes we don't see that. So it's, you know, but you, you know, objectives change, leadership changes. What. What's important to one may not be important. Like you said, time passes. And if we all think about our companies and our businesses, four to six years ago, everything looked very. Probably looked very, very different for us. And then, you know, today we're in a different environment. So an idea that was, you may have been early with, you know, four or five years ago now makes a lot of sense and you can drive to it. And yes, I agree with you. We can all say I told you so in my mind, but probably.

Well, and even before we hit record on this, you and I were talking about an initiative that you think is really important, you know, needs to happen. And you're like, you know What? I have 10,000 other things that need to take priority right now. So I'm going to get to that, but I can't do it right now. So again, it doesn't mean it's not a great idea and it doesn't need to happen. It's actually quite critical. But everything else needs to be in place.

Yeah, I think you're. And you're absolutely right about that. And you know the one we were talking about, I think the important piece about that is we all should be looking a few years out. So, so true. The initiative you and I were talking about, I think that will come to pass in another year or two. But I'm starting to have the team start to do some planning for it now. I think another critical thing for us who sit in these roles and the teams that we have the privileges to lead is that we should be forward thinking. And it doesn't mean that that forward thinking always has to materialize into a project for now. But how do we start laying the foundation for where we want to go? Which comes back to our strategy, which comes back to, I know what I need to do this year, which is in the closer we are in time, the more tactical we typically are because we're executing on something that was already developed and put in place. But how do we start to think through it? So the project you and I were talking about, that to me, for me, I'm looking at an overall strategy in my technology space. And how does that piece of it fit into this digital. It fits. How does that fit into our digital transformation that we're trying to take the Halion legal and compliance and cosec departments through? How does that slot into it? It may be a couple of years in my technology estate to help drive that initiative. So we realize that transformation out on the other side. And I think it is really, really important for us to stop and create space because it's always very hard for us to create space for ourselves to think. But how do we sort of, you know, carve that out and stop a little bit and say, okay, if I had a crystal ball, you know, where do I want to be in three years? What do I want this to look like? And then just start to lay that. And sometimes we may do a lot of sort of research and work and it. We don't use it for a long time or we never use it, but at least we've done it. But when it comes the time to get ready to go do something, as you and I were talking about, I want my team to be ready to be able to go to my procurement teams and say, we want to do X. Here's the landscape that's out there. We've Already done all the research. Here you go. And get this RFI RFP out in the street so I can start to drive this initiative.

Exactly, exactly. And for that reason, I mean, let's talk about tech specifically. That's why with this changing landscape and the changing technology in front of us today, it's so important to stay on top of what's happening in our industry. What are the developments, who's coming out, who's doing interesting things. And even thinking back to my years at Google, even if we were not in a space to buy something, I was going to get out there and see what are the latest developments from the big players. Who's doing things that are interesting, how are other companies thinking about this and that the idea of the art of the possible. There was maybe not a appetite for putting that technology in at our company at the moment, but then fast forward two months, you sit down with your head of compliance and the head of compliance goes, I now have a new initiative and I want to spin this up this year. And you can't start from scratch. You need to kind of already know what your options are, what's going on out there, what the best practices are. So yes, staying sharp and talking to the community and being out there is really important.

Yeah. And something else you just mentioned too is the art of the possible. We always need to be thinking in those terms. And yes, we can't sit around all day with blue sky thinking because then we would never get anything done and then find ourselves having to go do something else. But that I think is another component of creating time and space for ourselves to think about what that could look like. And that art of the possible leads you back down to some of the, you know, the, you know, those strategic but, you know, more tactical things in the short run. Because if you start to think your way through, if this is really where we could go, what should I start doing today? And those may be smaller things that can then, that can then arc us out to, you know, maybe a grander vision. And that vision will always be a little different than we think it might be today. But at least we're, I think it's really important for us as leaders to think like that. Yeah, it's so easy to get caught up and I do it all the time, get caught up in the day to day sort of churn. But if we, if we do that, we don't give ourselves the privilege, the right to stop and think a little bit, then we look up and six months have gone by and then we don't have. And that takes us away from the strategic, which is, and that's always the balance. And I think one of the other things too, then I've really learned this is that we all have teams to a degree. Trust those teams. You hire really competent, super intelligent professionals, let them go do, let them help you create the space that you need as a leader to help drive some more of that coming back to the strategic piece, help drive some more of that strategic piece while they're helping to execute the plans that they've helped you develop. Because you really should bring them into that part of it as well.

So that's an interesting comment because you and I both came from places that were bigger organizations with bigger teams. And you know, a lot of the folks that are struggling with how do I transition to be strategic, have either a small team or no team. They might be the only person. And when that happens, it's very easy to get bogged down with the day to day because there's no one to offload that too. And some of the advice that I give is every initiative, every tech, every project you put in place does make things more efficient, does eliminate work for a lot of people, but it might actually increase the amount of work and maintenance for the legal ops team or the legal ops function. Right? So you always have to set the expectation that once this is launched, I don't get to just walk away from it. Now I have more stuff to maintain and so I don't get to step out. So setting that expectation that you're going to need some budget, some headcount, some outsourcing of running the day to day is really critical to enable yourself to go work on the next big thing. And that is again a conversation that you have to initiate and talk to your leaders about. If I embark on putting this tech in place, if we put this new process in place, someone's got to maintain it, someone's got to administer it. And if that's me, then I don't get to work on the next big thing. That's a choice that you all are making and it's not a great use of my time. Right? So have those conversations.

I think those conversations are super, super critical because you're right, it's very easy. We're like, we tend to be like sponges. So it's very easy for us to put something in place and oh, now I now have to keep absorbing, maintaining and we all run out of bandwidth at some point. And I think another piece of that is as you develop Those initiatives in the business plans around those initiatives showing the return on the investment and the potential savings. Whether that's, you know, whether it's hard savings or it's more, you know, soft savings and capacity generation or being able to move, you know, you know, tasks into, you know, utilizing automation or things like that, moving tasks into the tech and freeing up time, there's a return there and some of that return needs to be reinvested into the legal ops team. So don't be shy about saying, hey, this is going to drive a benefit of X hundred thousand dollars or fifty thousand dollars but happy to return some of that, but really should be looking to reinvest some of that to help keep us, to help keep driving that forward. And the other thing too is I found at least about getting initiatives off the ground and getting them implemented, running them is another story. Running what you've built is to that point we were just talking about you do need, you do need folks to help you do that. But I've also found that, you know, there are no shortage of folks who will put their hand up to help when, when we get an initiative off the ground, which is always, you don't want, as I say, too many Cokes in the kitchen. But well, I found that bringing folks in from the legal teams or the other teams with inside the department to help drive it gives them a sense of ownership, helps them feel that, you know, they've participated in getting there, gives us diverse opinions on where we should be heading with something and makes our lives a little, but it also, it reduces a little bit of the resourcing load that we might need. And be careful. It's always hard to build the bridge as you're running over it, but it's, it's one of those things. So I think there are creative ways for folks to do this. And it's hard when you're just one person and in a legal operation part then you're sort of, you know, trying to handle everything. But I do think there are ways creatively to do resourcing. Whether it's pulling from inside the organization or you know, making that investment case of, you know, maybe it's not hiring a full time person to join you, but maybe to your point, it's using a strategic partner in the industry on a part time basis or finding different ways to help and there are ways to collaborate and to get this done.

Yeah, there's an amazing rise of companies now that are offering kind of legal ops support, managed service, flexible staffing, whatever you want to call it, but there's a lot of resources out there now. You just have to talk to others and figure out how they're using it.

Absolutely.

Bob, do you have the Chief of Staff title in your role, I'm curious, Or is that part of your role or function, do you think?

I do not. So we. For me, I think the Chief of Staff title is used in different ways in different companies.

Yes.

I've seen it have be used in a way that is equal equivalent to the title that I carry. I've also seen it have a more administrative context to it.

Also. True. Yes.

So I think the Chief of Staff title is probably trying to figure out what it wants to be metaphorically out there. But no, I don't care. I actually prefer the Chief Operating Officer title that I. I'm fortunate enough to carry. For me, I think it's just. It's more indicative of what I do and it's. I think it's more indicative of the responsibilities that you know, have been given to me both from a strategic and a tactical perspective on participating in the leadership of the legal department.

Yeah, that's. That's exactly right. And the reason I ask, and I'm glad you have highlighted the distinctions of how people define that role. The reason I ask is because often people will say, oh well, GC will say, I'm thinking about hiring a Chief of Staff in addition to my legal ops team because I want the strategic person to be in my circle and then have legal ops run the day to day stuff. And I always say the best practice for me, and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this is that it's actually combined into one role. If we're defining that as the strategic person and the tactical getting stuff done execution team, the Chief of Staff who is often an individual contributor. Right. They don't have a team can't actually get anything done strategically because they don't have a team to execute. They don't have project managers, they don't have the cross functional alignment and they end up leveraging the legal ops team. So in my view, the best practice is actually for that to be all mushed together so that your legal COO is the person who is in the suite coming up with the strategies, the initiatives and managing the team that actually owns and executes all that. I think you are actually the perfect example of the embodiment of that role as you've described everything that you do. That's what you and your team do. So Subjarne has done a great job of Setting that up really well. Would you agree?

I would agree. I do think that you want those two components to be brought together. I think it's most effective to have the person who is helping drive strategy also be responsible for and have the capacity to execute on the operational pieces that will bring that strategy to life. And I think that having, you know, and I think it comes back to the definition of the roles, because again, I've seen chief of staff roles defined in all sorts of different ways. Yes, some are exactly as you described. They have the responsibility for both helping the gc you create and articulate strategy. And it really is done in collaboration and not in lieu of your gc. I mean, your GC or your chief legal officer, they are going to set and drive strategy. And as somebody who sits in my role, I participate in that. I like to think I participate in that to a pretty, not large, but a material degree. But it's also the rest of your leadership team, her direct reports, will also participate in the development of that strategy. But having the ability to do that and being the leader that has the team to execute together, I think you're absolutely right. To me, that's the most effective piece of it. I think when you bifurcate it, it does become difficult because you then have typically an individual contributor or somebody who has a smaller team then coming in and trying to work with legal ops to say, well, you know, this is what. What I want to drive. Because I think this should be the strike. I think these should be the initiatives that help drive the strategy. And then you may have a, you know, very senior legal officer who said, well, you know, I understand where we want to go, and I agree with you that we need to execute against that strategy. But I think we should do A, B and C. And then you've got. You may or may not have this tension that you have to go back to your CLO and ask her to referee. I do agree. And I think the differences in titles and what they do and what they stand for is really just an indicator of our profession is still maturing. We're still on that curve. But regardless of what we call, whether you call it chief of staff, coo, I think to your point, having one person with the responsibility for both is really critical. I think that's best case scenario. I recognize that it may not be reality in a lot of places, but for me, that is probably the best way to do it. Because to your point, it gives you continuity, of course, across not only the strategy development, but the execution of that strategy and having the resources and the teams to drive it.

Yeah. Bob, it's been so great talking to you. I'm so glad we covered this topic. I can't believe the time has just flown by because I intended to go through your background and your journey and talk about a whole bunch of other things, but obviously we didn't get to that. But this is such a critical conversation that I am very grateful that you came and took the time to talk about this with me. And are there any parting words of wisdom for those struggling to move into the strategic role?

Well, thanks for having me, Mary. I think it's. As we've talked before, I do think this is a super critical topic for us and where we are in the profession. So it's my privilege and pleasure to come to join you today to chat about this. I think the parting words of wisdom, for whatever they're worth it would be believe in yourself, believe in your abilities, take the initiative. Don't be afraid of people telling you no, but be willing to put yourself out there. We all sit in these positions because somebody in our respective organizations thought that we had the intellect and the skill set and the ambition and the drive to do this. You have a license to do this. Now, how you exercise that license, you'll need to balance that within your own organizations. But take that license, drive value, come up with awesome ideas, put them out there. And I think if you do that, you'll find that people will gravitate towards you, whether it's inside, legal and all those relationships you have outside of your legal department. And over time, it may not be immediate, but over time you will become. You'll become a respected leader in this area and people will come to you. And it's always hard to start, but I guess the short is believe in yourself and just, just go do it. That's one of the things. It's. For all of us. It's. I think some of. For at least for me, it's. Sometimes it's, should I. Am I overstepping my bounds or.

That's right.

Just. Just go do it and do it nicely and be collaborative. And I think if we do that, the results will come and we'll get to the place that we want to be.

Such great advice. Just get over the imposter syndrome and believe in yourself and take the risk. Bob, such a pleasure. Thank you for being here and to all our listeners, I hope that you enjoyed this show. I know I learned a lot from it today. So talk to you soon.