Rohit Kumar, group general counsel of agricultural solutions company UPL, has been working in-house for more than a decade. After roughly eight years of experience in M&A and other corporate matters at J. Sagar Associates in Delhi, and then Herbert Smith Freehills in Melbourne, Kumar joined UPL in 2010, hoping to have broader business experience. Since then, he has climbed steadily up the ranks, becoming global general counsel in 2018, and group general counsel earlier this year.

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ALB: What have been some of your highlights from your time in charge? And what are some leadership lessons you have learnt?

Kumar: Some of the highlights of my time at UPL are: Recruiting and nurturing in-house talent to make them best in class; revamping the team and making the legal team more visible internally and externally (during this time, the legal team grew from five lawyers to 50 today); and supporting some fantastic M&As including the $4.2 billion acquisition of Arysta in 2019.

ALB: How would you describe your strategy for the legal team?

Kumar: The legal team's first and foremost responsibility is to ensure that the company takes minimum risk, and if the company is taking a risk, it is an informed risk. I keep telling my team that we have to be world-class in-house team and provide commercially relevant legal advice to our business colleagues. We have to be part of the solution and not merely act as legal advisors. We don’t engage external lawyers for routine work.

ALB: What are some of the bigchallenges the business has been facing in the past few months, and how are you looking to tackle them?

Kumar: The big challenges the company is facing are:

• Climate change: We are in agribusiness. We help farmers, particularly marginal ones, to become more efficient and productive. Climate change has a direct impact on farming and, therefore, on our business. We are trying to make farming more sustainable by making farmers more climate resilient and also by bringing better climate-resilient technology to them.
• Cybercrime: We continue to strengthen our IT systems and create awareness within the company and also with our external stakeholders. So, we operate in a highly regulated space, and a constantly changing regulatory landscape is one of our challenges.

ALB: How did you feel the pandemic reshaped how your team (and broader company) operates? What strategy changes have you put in place in the long run?

Kumar: One thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history. We resumed regular office over a year ago, and now the pandemic is behind us. Having said that, the pandemic did accelerate the adoption of technology. The legal team is more accustomed to calls and virtual meetings on MS Teams/Zoom. Another change is that despite being back in office, we are okay with our colleagues working from home. This was not the case before.   

ALB: How important is the company’s culture, according to you? What kind of internal culture are you looking to foster both within the team and your business as a whole?

Kumar: Culture is important. We have a culture of openness and empowerment. We like sharing our knowledge and experience within and outside the legal team. I encourage that. The other thing that we do – I think well – is empowerment. We empower people at every level to own up and take responsibility. It is only with empowerment you can manage a complex business like ours. 

ALB: On that note, how would you describe your hiring and talent retention strategy? What kinds of lawyers would make the best fit for your team? 

Kumar: We typically don’t hire freshers as we don’t have the time and energy to train them. While hiring is based on the role, we prefer hiring lawyers who have worked in reputable law firms for a few years. I believe you get to work on a broader set of issues when you work with law firms compared to corporates, making you a better in-house lawyer.  

ALB: What kind of compliance system have you established for your company? What are some of its advantages, and what parts need further improvement?

Kumar: We have a robust compliance system. We have a best-in-class code of conduct complemented by an independently run whistle-blower hotline. We have established code of conduct committees both regionally and at the global level. Anyone can report violations of the code of conduct through the independently run whistle-blower hotline, which is then acted upon by the code of conduct committee. We also run our compliance-related training programs through Navex, a leading integrated platform for governance and compliance. Still, even though we have done well in our compliance program in getting to where we are, we need more improvement. We have to put more effort into training and creating more awareness with our employees.

ALB: How would you describe your approach to technology? How has the use of tech within your team evolved since you started at the helm, and what is your blueprint for the next year or two?

Kumar: We have been very open to using technology to improve our efficiency and delivery. We implemented an online platform to manage our global trademarks almost ten years back. At the same time, we also implemented a compliance module. I believe we are also one of the first companies in the manufacturing space to introduce contract lifecycle management.    

ALB: How would you rate the current standard of legal services available in your jurisdiction? What do law firms do well, and what could they do better?

Kumar: We work with law firms and lawyers from all over the world. Since I am based out of India, the standard of legal service though it has improved significantly in the last few years, is still to match what international law firms offer. The quality of legal service delivery is still individual-centric, and even within the same law firm in India, you can get very different quality of legal service. We don’t see such variance in international law firms. That is why, in India, it is more about engaging a lawyer or lawyers than hiring law firms.

ALB: What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

Kumar: I can think of two. First, treat people how you would want to be treated if you were them. Second, value your time, i.e., don’t spend time to save money but spend money to save time.