With over 12 years of global in‑house experience, John Beckett, Chief Legal Officer for Caldic in Netherlands reflects on the GC’s evolving mandate, building agile, business‑centric teams, and sustaining resilience in demanding environments.
In what ways do you see the role of the GC changing over the next 5–10 years?
The GC is moving from “trusted firefighter” to strategic architect of how organisations make and document decisions. Boards will expect GCs not only to manage legal risk but also to design the governance, information flows and controls that help the organisation do the right thing at scale, especially as regulatory complexity, AI‑driven operations and geopolitical volatility continue to accelerate. In recent years, the role has already become more outward‑facing: proactive engagement with regulators, responding to rapidly evolving industry standards, and cultivating ecosystem partnerships are now standard competencies. Over the next 5-10 years these capabilities will matter as much as the quality of a GC’s technical legal advice, because competitive advantage will increasingly hinge on how effectively a company navigates its regulatory environment and uses law as part of strategy, not as an afterthought. In practice, that means co‑owning – and in some cases leading – on issues like AI governance, digital trust and sustainability, embedding risk signals into planning cycles, and translating geopolitics and regulation into clear strategic options at the speed boards demand.
How do you foster innovation and agility within your legal team?
Culture first, guardrails second, tools third. Innovation thrives when people know they can challenge the status quo without creating chaos. I focus on clarity – what success looks like and where flexibility exists – so the team feels safe to simplify, experiment and share ideas. When curiosity is rewarded and trust takes root, agility stops being a process and becomes a mindset. Agility is driven by simplification: standardised templates, clear decision rights and pragmatic escalation criteria that let the team move fast on the 80% and reserve deep legal debate for the 20% that truly moves the needle. We use legal tech for contract lifecycle management and compliance where it genuinely frees time for higher‑value work, but agility is still more about mindset than tools. The real multiplier is proximity to the business – once you build that, it becomes clear that trust and empowerment turn agility from a workflow into a shared mindset.
What qualities do you believe distinguish truly impactful GCs from good ones?
Good GCs provide accurate advice; impactful GCs shape the questions the business asks in the first place. They compress complexity into a few crisp choices with business‑literate consequences, and they take a position instead of hiding behind a menu of options. They combine legal expertise with business acumen and emotional intelligence, anticipate change rather than react to it, and communicate in a way that enables momentum rather than paralysis.
Above all, they show professional courage: they are willing to say “no” or “not yet” to attractive initiatives when long‑term integrity or licence to operate is at stake, and they own that position with the board and C‑suite. They safeguard integrity and compliance not as constraints, but as enablers of sustainable growth – embedding governance so the business can move fast without eroding trust. Add to this the ability to influence without authority, cross‑cultural fluency and disciplined communication – turning legal nuance into actionable strategy – and you have the traits that lift a GC from strong to truly consequential.
If you could change one perception about the in‑house legal profession, what would it be?
I would challenge the idea that in‑house lawyers are primarily technicians who apply rules once a decision is already framed. The most effective GCs and teams operate as thought partners on how to think, not just on how to comply. By acting as market shapers and resilience engineers, they bring a way of structuring problems, stress‑testing assumptions and making trade‑offs transparent that is valuable far beyond narrow legal questions.
The best in‑house teams also read regulatory change as an early‑signal system for competitive positioning – scanning inflection points, translating them into product, go‑to‑market and partnership design, and helping leadership decide where to place strategic bets with confidence. If that perception took hold, the legal function would be seen not as a commentator on decisions but as a discipline that improves the quality and repeatability of decisions themselves.
Closing Thought
The GC’s job is no longer just to guard the rules – it is to build the conditions in which the business consistently chooses well. When integrity, governance and commercial judgement are designed into how decisions are made, organisations turn compliance from a cost into a source of durable advantage.
