“Workgroup was the best use of my time at a "conference" for a long time.”
27 November 2024
By Charlotte HudsonHappy to fill that gap for you Simon (White, SVP & Deputy General Counsel, IQVIA)! 🥰
At the time of writing, I’m sitting on the same train to London that I caught last week to come to Workgroup Legal. It’s beautifully snowy out of the window and seems more winter than autumn. ☃️ It feels like a good time to ponder.
This time last year, I was working as the sole in-house counsel for a charity. Some of the things that used to do my head in were, in no particular order:
⛔ Being excluded from key decision making processes until after the event; 🤯 Feeling isolated and like no-one ‘got’ why I was concerned about the things I was; 🔇 Knowing I could contribute more, if they had let me be part of the conversations that mattered.
There were also things that I learned along the way such as: 📜 Perfectly watertight policies and processes are useless if they're too faffy or onerous to implement; 💀 Not everyone shared my understanding of risk and sometimes, that was ok (other times, it wasn’t).
Fast forward a year and I still hear all the same thoughts, but now they are not just in my head. They are talked about openly by a room full of people, and new ideas and methods for dealing with the problems are shared.
“This was one of the best GC events I have been to, finally a forum where GC’s can have meaningful conversations and issues we face every day. I will definitely be back”. Harpreet Thandi, General Counsel UK&I, Ferrero
The relaxed smiles at the end of the day tells me that a problem shared, is indeed a problem halved.
“The Workgroup Legal events are one of the few of their type that I not only make time for but go out of my way to keep held in my diary. We’re all busy GCs, but this event really is worth it. Not just for the content, but the way it is delivered, the people that deliver it and the sheer camaraderie of it all.” Ruwan de Soyza, General Counsel, Thunes
If you want to relive the fun and conversations, check out the highlights video below.
Huge thank you to Merley Okine, Simon White, Sophie Thompson, Andrew Williams and Zuzana Blazkova for sharing your thoughts! 🙏🏾I’m now in London, and it feels like autumn again. So enough pondering. Because tomorrow is Workgroup/HR bringing the same format to CHROs and CPOs and I couldn’t be more excited! 🎉(*edit at the time of posting - Workgroup/HR last week was phenomenal and if your CPO isn’t already signed up to the next one, they should be!)