Nokia’s transformation over the last few years has tested the leadership skills of all function heads. In April 2014 it completed the $7.2bn sale of its handsets business to Microsoft, and by January 2016 its $16.6bn acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent was in place, cementing its transition from a large phone producer to an even larger networking and IT business.
In spite of the changes, core elements of Nokia remain in place, including its respected learning and development centre, the Nokia Academy. A group-wide emphasis on training, says Maria Varsellona, who joined Nokia Solutions as general counsel in 2013 and was promoted to chief legal officer of the wider Nokia group a year later, is at the heart of running a successful legal function.
‘Instil the right culture.’
‘In-house organisations tend to be flat so it is very important for us to be able to give project leadership skills to our lawyers and encourage them to work out of their comfort zone. Nokia has been successful in training lawyers to be business partners and this helps us find development opportunities for our team. We want our senior lawyers to develop exactly the same leadership skills as the core business teams. Even for more junior recruits, we spend as much time teaching negotiating skills and interpersonal skills as pure legal or compliance skills. It’s a complex industry and you need to understand the products to work with them, and that calls for a broader mentality.’
Since joining Nokia, Varsellona has seen the legal team shrink to around 200 lawyers before rising back to its current size of 440 in a short period of time. This, along with the integration of Alcatel-Lucent staff, has underscored the importance of broader skills in a function leader.
‘The role calls for management and leadership skills rather than just legal skills. A leader in the legal and compliance function should be an expert lawyer, a gatekeeper and a business partner that is capable of creating a collaborative and inclusive environment. You need a very large skillset to play all of these roles and it is demanding, but you can’t lose sight of the fact that it is your job to instil the right culture to ensure lawyers have the courage to support the business’s decision-making.’