Inspiring Legal

About Inspiring Legal

Join host Stine Mangor Tornmark as she journeys through the in-house legal landscape of today. With influential GCs, top C-level executives and other fascinating guests, Inspiring Legal is your weekly dose of everything legal, career and life-lessons. Don’t hesitate to pitch ideas, feedback etc. to hello@openli.com Apply to become a community member at www.openli.com/community

Publisher

Openli

Category

business · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

17 Oct 2022

Latest episode

25 Apr 2023

Latest episodes

28 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   25 Apr 2023

   Episode 25: Becoming a trusted partner - with Thomas Christiansen, GC at TrackUnit

   TrackUnit's General Counsel, Thomas Christiansen, joins the Inspiring Legal studio! We're talking about being the first Legal hire, how to educate the rest of the business, how to help Sales, and how being agile in a small company helps you get ahead. Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal. Full episode transcript: [00:00 - 00:16] Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal. Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs. [00:16 - 00:34] If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it.  For more inspiration, go to Openli.com slash community. Welcome to this episode of Inspiring Legal. [00:34 - 00:51] My name is Stine and I'm a part of Openli.  And today I'm going to be joined by Thomas Christensen, who is going to introduce himself in a second. But before he does that, I can just already now give you a sneak little kind of advertiser as to what we're going to be talking about today. [00:51 - 01:11] Because Thomas has been on a journey with the company Track Unit.  And that has been quite the impressive journey going for, well, growing across many countries. On top of that, growing himself, being the first one in legal and how that has impacted the culture. [01:11 - 01:31] Well, that's what we're going to be talking about today.  Welcome, Thomas.  Thank you, Stine. Nice to join you.  Well, it's us thanking you for being here.  Thomas, I know a little bit about you and your company, but the listeners might not. So maybe could you give an introduction to who you are and your background. [01:31 - 01:47] And maybe also Track Unit, just so that people get to know a little bit more.  Oh, yeah, for sure.  So, yes, and yeah, you're correct.  I was the first legal in Track Unit.  I have a background first from corporate law. So, well, in Denmark, we have a split. [01:47 - 02:03] You have corporate law and ordinary law.  So my first education was a candidacy in our masters in corporate law.  I did do a normal law, so to speak, afterwards.  So I have both. And that's my educational background. [02:03 - 02:20] And I've had a little bit of a diverse kind of career to go into it.  I actually started working for a university as a kind of a, what is it, department head at an administrative level for a center. Working with teleinfrastructure, which is suddenly where I ended up afterwards also. [02:20 - 02:36] But that was not the trajectory I was set out to be.  So I left them after three years working into a company that was a bit of a startup working within, well, a lot of legal work, mostly focused on employment law. That was bought by a union, a Danish union called Krifa. [02:36 - 02:56] And then I worked for them for about three years after they bought and merged it into their organization.  So I learned a lot about employment law there.  Didn't really feel that that was my plan for my future. So I heard about a small Danish company that was just been acquired by Goldman Sachs and Grow Capital at that point. [02:56 - 03:12] And that sounded very interesting to kind of move out and be in an in-house legal.  So I started there in May 16, I believe it was, which is a long time ago for most people. But yes, so that was my kind of introduction into the work in track unit. [03:12 - 03:29] Track unit is a company that does fleet management. We are a software company, have a hardware component as well, enables us to collect data, have roughly about one and a half million units deployed all over the world, collecting data in construction. [03:29 - 03:49] So it is the construction world that is our main focus.  So we call it off highway.  And our purpose in the entire company is actually to eliminate downtime, which is one of the biggest issues for our industry. And plays a lot into the legal over, by the way, we like to optimize, we like to be efficient, we like to make things in the best possible way. [03:49 - 04:05] And it's a not so digitized world that we are trying to help digitize and actually make use of data.  And as we also spoke a little bit before the podcast, as well, being open about data and what you can use it for to help pretty much the industry. And we see a lot of traction in that. [04:05 - 04:30] Recently been acquired by HG Capital, so Goldman Sachs.  So the PE journey, private equity journey is also part of, let me say, my internal education, so to speak. It has been quite a journey going from a, let's say, a normal eight to four job to be owned by a big conglomerate PE bank that has some requirements, not just on the legal side, but also the compliance side. [04:30 - 04:46] So it has been a how to build this structure in a, let's call it a small North Jutland company, maybe not used to too much legal. And well, trying to see how you actually gain a role of being a trusted partner as a legal person. [04:46 - 05:04] So, Thomas, when you joined the company, you were their first legal hire.  I was. How did you kind of go about educating the CEO and the CFO about, hey, I'm the new guy. [05:04 - 05:20] I'm the one who helps with legal.  And what does that even mean?  So how did you do that?  And what were your learnings from it?  I would say I was a little bit naive when I started. I had like a big idea about now I have to build structure. [05:20 - 05:37] I'm going to teach these people how to do legal, how to do everything in the right way.  Very quickly, I learned software is definitely not a place where you build structure.  It's where you need to be agile.  So that's one of my big learnings. If you're in a company, and maybe even as the first one, I used to, well, I'm inspired by a few other legal people. [05:37 - 05:58] So I call it building walls.  I can't build boxes.  I can build walls.  And within those walls, they can pretty much pounce as they want.  I'm just making sure we don't end up in places where we go to jail or get big fines or, well, get into media trouble or anything else. That's pretty much my main task is keeping us within these walls, both compliance and legal-wise. [05:58 - 06:25] And I had to learn to forget about the boxes and just say, well, I'll keep us in line, but I'll help kind of impact the business on the best possible way. And I think the journey is mainly, well, all the legal business will know that we have a tendency to be always in a little bit of conflict with our salespeople because they see us, well, we are slow, we're a bottleneck. [06:25 - 06:43] We do everything to kind of stop the commercial journey.  And just convincing them, no, that's not what we're doing.  It's actually enabling you to do things in a correct way. And I think, well, it took a few years, but I would say that our legal actually appreciate the legal department now. [06:43 - 07:12] So sales help, legal help sales.  But yes, educating everybody, including CEOs. I think from what I've heard from others, but also my own personal experience is that when you start as the first legal hire, it's a lot about not only building processes, but it's a lot about getting people to know what you can use legal for, how legal can support and be a business player. [07:12 - 07:29] But at the same time, it's also a find balance in regards to you also need to build walls.  You need to protect the business.  So can you maybe just tell a little bit about how did you get started?  Like, how did you go about that journey? Yeah, for sure. [07:29 - 07:45] It's a, I'm a big fan of the book, The Trusted Advisor.  It has a very good trust equation because w...

2. 

   18 Apr 2023

   Episode 24: The future of privacy

   The privacy landscape is moving fast these days, and increasingly so. That's why we're dedicating the following weeks fully to privacy here at Inspiring Legal. Stine Tornmark will take you through what you need to know and what's on the horizon for digital privacy. Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal. Full episode transcript: [00:00 - 00:16] Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal. Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs. [00:16 - 00:38] If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it.  For more inspiration, go to Openli.com slash community. So welcome to another episode of Inspiring Legal. [00:38 - 00:54] My name is Stine and I am a CEO and co-founder of Openli.  But what I'm also is a passionate person when it comes to privacy. I strongly believe that privacy is a fundamental human right. [00:54 - 01:12] And it's not to put myself on a pedestal, but it's just to say my life.  It's as much online as it is offline.  That's just the name of the game today. With chat DBT and what's going on now with AI, well, that's only going to increase. [01:13 - 01:29] So in this little episode, I'm going to be talking about data.  I'm going to be talking about transferring data from the EU to the US. It doesn't sound super interesting, but I'm sorry to say it's impacting [01:29 - 01:45] you and your life every single day.  You might not be on Facebook, you might not use Google, but you will most likely either use Instagram, you might use Apple. [01:45 - 02:05] Well, they're all US-based companies.  So when I'm talking about data and I'm talking about data transfers, I'm  talking about your everyday life because American tech companies are de facto in our lives and that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but take a step back. [02:05 - 02:26] What is it that I'm really talking about?  Well, in the EU, we have GDPR, right?  We see it as a fundamental human right.  The right for you to own your data. In the US, up until now, the focus has been very much about the companies owning data. [02:27 - 02:46] We're seeing more legislation coming from the US, for example, in California  with the CCPA, but we don't have the same standards yet anyway. What we're also seeing is a very strong intelligence agency in the US that have [02:46 - 03:06] far-reaching rights to access your data, to use it in whatever way that they  deem appropriate or not appropriate, but for whatever means they want the data. So therefore, there has been a lot of decisions over the last couple of years [03:06 - 03:25] with Strems 2, if you've heard about that, the privacy shield falling apart,  and all due to the fact that the US didn't provide the same level of protection. So what we then got was a period of time where everybody was running around [03:26 - 03:41] and not knowing what to do.  Then we got the SECs, that's the transfer mechanism enabling businesses to send  data between the EU and the US, but that in itself isn't enough. You need to have additional safety measures. [03:41 - 04:01] You need to make sure that your data is safe.  So many kind of thought, okay, let's try and see if we can figure that one out.  Not easy in any way.  And I'm not promoting the only service, but that is a part of what it is that we're doing, trying to really help with that transfers element, as many of [04:01 - 04:18] the things we're doing.  But what we then saw is Google Analytics getting in trouble.  It started in Austria.  And what happened was that the Austrian data protection authorities found that there wasn't additional, the safety wasn't good enough. [04:18 - 04:37] Transfers of data was happening, IP addresses and so forth in clear text.  Big issue.  Therefore, they kind of like said, Google Analytics violating GDPR, therefore,  you can't use it. We then saw that the EU was also doing a lot of things that were not [04:37 - 04:54] you can't use it.  We then saw that spreading out.  Moving to Italy, moving to France, moving to Denmark and the EDPB, that's the European Data Protection Board, issued a statement saying, this is an issue. [04:55 - 05:15] So everybody started looking at, okay, I need to change.  I need to find an alternative to Google Analytics.  That's an episode we could take kind of like on its own, I know, but let's just  focus on the transfers for today. So everybody, I think many were thinking, okay, we'll get a solution from the [05:15 - 05:32] politicians.  They will figure out a way for us to send data.  They will create a framework and we're still waiting for that because the Biden  administration came out not that long ago and saying, well, we're getting closer. We're going to get some kind of transfer in place. [05:33 - 05:49] What Mark Schrems did, and that's the Austrian data protection, let's call it,  I don't know what to call him. He is not an activist, but he's also, they're kind of like a non-profit [05:49 - 06:10] organization enforcing GDPR and privacy rights.  Well, he kind of came out and said, well, that's going to be lipstick on a pig.  Meaning, don't expect this to solve anything anytime soon. So everybody kind of like still hope and anticipate that we might be seeing some [06:10 - 06:29] kind of change with the authorities in Europe and the US coming into some kind  of agreement.  Yeah, well, then comes meta, meaning Facebook. For many years, it's been the Irish regulators that have been responsible for [06:29 - 06:45] enforcing privacy when it comes to Facebook because Facebook has their  European headquarters, if we can call that, in Ireland. So many have been talking back and forth about the Irish data protection agency [06:45 - 07:00] not being that enforceful.  And I'm not trying to do any kind of conspiracy.  I'm not saying that whether or not they're good, but given the fact that the Irish have a lot of tech companies, at least the Irish data protection agency [07:00 - 07:17] has a lot of things they should be looking for.  So what happened was that the European data protection board, which is composed of data protection regulators from each member state in Europe, they get together [07:18 - 07:33] on a regular basis and they figure out on a European level, because it's one law,  right?  It's the GDPR applied to the entire Europe.  They figure out what they think in different areas. And they have now issued a statement when it comes to Facebook. [07:34 - 07:53] So what did they say?  Well, we don't know exactly because they haven't made that statement public, like  the decision, but they made a statement. And what they said was the Irish regulators have one month, one month to get things [07:53 - 08:09] going when it comes to Facebook.  And it is anticipated that there will be a ban of transfers between the EU and the US in regards to Meta Facebook. [08:10 - 08:30] In that regard, I can mention that Facebook has been going out publicly and warning if  there will be such a ban.  They might be forced to close down Facebook in Europe.  Boom. So when I'm talking about Facebook and I'm talking about transfers, I am talking [08:30 - 08:48] about potentially far reaching implications.  Imagine Facebook closed in Europe, closed up.  Because of transfers. So if you're sitting there and thinking, why is she talking about those bloody transfers? [08:49 - 09:05] I'm talking about you not having access to Facebook and you might be sitting there  and thinking, OK...

3. 

   11 Apr 2023

   Episode 23: Leading Legal Operations - with Sean Houston of Heineken

   Today, we take another dive into Legal Operations. This time, we explore and discuss with Heineken's Legal Operations Manager, Sean Houston. We'll get into the how and why of legal ops with Sean, who also shares his journey from tech to ultimately joining Heineken in The Netherlands. Thank you for listening to Inspiring Legal. Full episode transcript: Welcome to Inspiring Legal, the podcast for in-house legal. Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs. If it's related to in-house legal, we cover it.  For more inspiration, go to openli.com slash community. Welcome to another episode of Inspiring Legal. My name is Stine and I'm your host.  It's not going to be me talking today because I have a guest on the podcast  that knows so much more about legal operations than I do. Sean is joining us and you'll hear from him in a second. But before we get Sean's introduction, I can tell you already now,  we're going to be talking about legal operations.  More specifically, covering the baseline of what is legal operations. And then Sean is going to help us get smarter on what type of background and skills should you have when working with legal operations.  Welcome, Sean.  Hi, Stine. Thanks for having me.  Well, thank you for joining. We are super excited about you joining because, well, not only do you have a lot of experience within legal operations, you have also really built  that work and that topic for companies that are, well, in many views,  big and doing a lot of great things and great work. So, Sean, before we start talking about legal operations, could you maybe just tell people a little bit about who you are  and your background and the company you work for and what you do?  Sure. So my name is Sean Houston.  I am legal operations manager here at Heineken. I'm a legal operations manager at Heineken. I'm a legal operations manager at Heineken.  I am legal operations manager here at Heineken,  based at our headquarters in Amsterdam.  I'm originally from the US, born and raised. I relocated to Ireland, was living in Ireland with my wife for about four years and then relocated here to the Netherlands for this position with Heineken  back in the summer of 2021.  So coming up on two years as we record this today. It's been a very good experience so far. And yeah, this legal ops journey, so to speak,  in this field of legal ops is one that I'm particularly very interested in  and happy to talk about with you today. So maybe before we start talking more specifically, how did you get into legal operations and how did you end up in Europe?  Yeah, so I think that'll probably be something,  you know, over the course of this conversation,  we probably come back to quite often, but there is no like very clear defined path that someone must take to wind up in legal ops or, you know,  wind up in a position like the one that I'm in here with Heineken.  So for me personally, I didn't even know what legal ops was, you know, let's say five or six years ago. So my background, I actually went to university for broadcast journalism  and particularly was interested in that for sports journalism. So I was a play-by-play broadcaster for a few different baseball teams in the US doing the play-by-play and commentating on the games  as they took place.  And I did that for a little over, right around six years and then decided that I didn't necessarily want to do that for the rest of my life.  I had enjoyed it a lot.  It was a wonderful experience, but, you know,  I guess I realized I preferred being a fan of sports more than anything else.  And when you work in something, you can't really also be a fan of it. It's difficult. So anyway, for various reasons, I moved away  from the broadcast journalism side and I pivoted  into working in software and technology. It was also something I'd always had an interest in and found very, you know, let's say fun and inspiring.  And I also saw, you know, a significant, let's say bright future  in that industry because, you know, I don't think anything  in terms of technology is going away. It's just going to continue to grow and grow and grow. So anyway, I pivoted into that and did that for several years.  First based in Austin, Texas, then with my wife, we moved to Ireland.  I continued working for a few different companies there. And then most recently, before joining Heineken, I was in at a base at a company, an Irish startup named Bright Flag.  And Bright Flag is a legal tech startup.  And so that was kind of my introduction into legal operations. So my role was in customer success for Bright Flag, working with our customers across the globe to ensure  that they were, you know, getting value out of the Bright Flag platform,  using it as well as they could and, you know, kind of streamlining and standardizing their operations as it pertained to vendor management and e-billing as much as they possibly could.  So through that, I was working every single day with the legal operations teams  and the legal departments at all of our customers, you know, very large global companies and also, you know, significantly smaller companies, but always, you know, companies of a decent size, let's say,  with a decent amount of external legal spend  that we could kind of help them with at Bright Flag.  And I became really interested in, you know, this legal operations field and kind of what it is and how all of the companies that I had an opportunity to work with, how their teams were structured  and what impacts they were making on the organization  and, you know, started to peel back the curtain a little bit  and learn a little bit more about it. And I realized, you know, how new of a function this was for just about every company that, you know, I was talking to.  I'd say more often than not, the legal operations person I was working with  was the very first person in that seat at their company. Same is true for me here at Heineken. And if it wasn't the first, it was maybe the second.  You know, it's a new function with people who are getting a chance  to create something kind of from the ground up.  And that was initially what was so very interesting to me. You know, I don't have a legal background. I didn't go to law school, but that's not a prerequisite or a requirement  for this position, even though it's within legal affairs.  And there was a lot of overlap between what I was doing in customer success to what, you know, a legal operations person will do at most companies.  Now, I do want to kind of not try and paint everything with, you know,  one color brush here, right?  Because I also totally recognize that what is legal operations here at Heineken, it does not necessarily mean that's exactly what that is at company A, B, C, on down the line.  It can change and it can vary quite a bit organization to organization.  Now, I know, you know, you mentioned earlier what is legal operations. So I like to defer to the definition that CLOCK provides. And for those who aren't familiar what CLOCK is,  it's a large organization that is solely for – based on legal operations.  So it's the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium. So they have a definition, which is legal ops describes a set of business processes, activities, and the professionals  who enable legal departments to serve their clients more effectively.  And it continues on, but I think that first part is, you know,  a pretty good summary. But if you even look at what I just said there, that's pretty va...

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