“The key to profitable and sustainable business today is to have a strong ever evolving compliance culture in the organisation.”

An interview with Amar Sundram, General Counsel – Sr. VP Legal & Chief Compliance Officer at NEC Corporation India Pvt Ltd in India.

What are the biggest external forces or trends currently shaping your role as General Counsel and how are you responding to them?

Currently the corporate world across the globe is battling with the challenges thrown open by Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Modules (LLM). AI and LLM are creating a host of challenges in the form of cybercrimes and the potential that this has in data leakages. LLM handles a vast amount of data and, if not properly secured, the possibility of data poisoning and leakages are not ruled out.

Organisations are losing huge amounts in these cybercrimes including the recent examples of digital arrest cases in India.

GCs are constantly in discussions with their IT professionals including CISO’s, reviewing data protection policies, policies around use of ChatGPT and AI and overall Information Security measures deployed in their respective organisations.

How are you balancing the increasing demands of legal risk management with the expectation to drive business value and strategic insight?

The key to profitable and sustainable business today is to have a strong ever evolving compliance culture in the organisation. Making employees aware of the impact and adverse consequences of negligence or casual approach to data management could have huge financial impact in the company. Thus, aligning the business goal and vision with the compliance eco system is the balancing act that most GCs are currently involved in.

Parallel to this is the ever growing monitoring by the regulators; be it in the cyber domain or data privacy domain or white collar crime domain or antitrust domain. The penal provisions relating to these in the respective laws are draconian. GCs are given the responsibility to protect the organisation in these challenging environments.

What’s one lesson or insight from your in-house journey that you wish you’d known earlier and would share with a fellow GC today?

Be close to the business and learn the business and financial aspects of the company. Plan for 5,10,15 & 20 years journey well in advance and progress as per plan. Always think of what comes next in your career. Build a strong team, mentor them and vacate the portfolio for them so that you can take up newer roles and responsibility.