"Covid has certainly been a black swan event impacting people, businesses, and economies" Lavanya Chandan, GC, OLX Group

Mr Chandan, you are the General Counsel for OLX Group’s businesses across Asia and Africa, which includes classifieds, offline transactions and its technology-based recruitment businesses. Would you please tell us more about your role and what a day in your shoes is like.

Thanks, Ashima. I am responsible for legal function for OLX markets across Asia and Africa. The legal function at the company encompasses corporate affairs and compliance (both in the legal sense of the term, as well as corporate governance). Among the jurisdictions I am responsible for – we have interesting businesses spanning across some of the fastest-growing economies like India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nigeria; and a unique blend of online classifieds businesses as well as offline transaction business in the automobile category.

Partnering with sharp and ambitious business leaders never fails to make my role exciting. In the stage of rapid growth, we have been continuing to attract newer challenges each day – some emanating from the agility of our business and some from the evolving regulatory environment. I, however, have the privilege of working with an enthusiastic, ingenious and smart bunch of lawyers in the team who continue to make my role redundant every day – pushing me to continue to evolve and attract newer challenges for the function. Each day in the role, therefore, feels more evolved, than the one before.

How has Covid-19 impacted the Classified Advertisements Services Market (Cost, Profit, Market Shares, Supply, Demands, Import and Export)? What are some of the industrial trends, drivers and challenges influencing its growth?

Covid has certainly been a black swan event impacting people, businesses and economies. Gladly, in the sectors that OLX operates – its impact has resulted in meaningful opportunities through the evolution of consumption patterns. For instance, the reluctance to use public transport has been the tipping point for fence-sitters contemplating owning a vehicle – and used vehicles have had a lion’s share of their choice. 

The pandemic has also accelerated the velocity of our evolution to meet the changing consumer needs – and prompted us to launch services and initiatives which have the potential to fundamentally change the way transactions for used goods take place. Our increased focus on consumer trust and safety – through our product initiatives that leverage state-of-the-art technology and our service offerings, has had an enduring impact on our customer utility.

What in your experience has been the most challenging part of your role as a GC?

Business enabling is a critical part of a General Counsel’s role. I also find it important to contribute towards business preservation and building its defensibility. This involves protecting business assets that confer competitive advantages from the mushrooming threats; and finding policy opportunities for the business to deepen the economic moat. For an evolving business like ours, keeping up with these opportunities often brings about a pleasant challenge.

Would you say there has been a sea change in how corporates interacted with technology before COVID-19 to now? As companies become more and more cost-conscious, has business automation found more acceptance with in-house legal departments? How does OLX leverage AI and LegalTech within the legal function?

The last few years have indeed witnessed building up of positive momentum towards adoption of technology among in-house legal teams—we have evolved technology and continue to work towards that transformation of the function. We do leverage technology in some of the typical ways it has come to be used by in-house legal functions especially in the contract lifecycle. 

What I see as an interesting challenge for us is to use technology for automation of some of the outputs of the legal team that involve subjective decision making based on several objective factors. For instance, the decision on how to pursue a sundry debt is based on a number of factors such as: the amount and nature of the debt, substance of the debtor, and the extent of engagement – all of which can be objectified,  and machine learning can offer valuable improvements to the decision making.

Please allow us to take you back to your school and law college. Please tell us about your alma mater and what inspired you to pursue law. How did you decide to move from firm practice to in-house practice? 

Thanks to the nature of my parents’ transfer prone occupations, I grew up in various small towns across Himachal Pradesh and studied in multiple schools offering a variety in the curriculum—probably a good way to learn change management. The decision to pursue law was on account of my interest in the subject— which was largely an outcome of my interactions with my father who was an officer in the civil services. 

I pursued law from Christ, Bangalore which is now a deemed university. I had the privilege of being part of the first batch of the law school which was an ambitious, enterprising and a resilient group. I have fond memories of my time in law school and value the contributions of my batch mates (and the first few batches) in literally building an institution. 

Out of law school placements, I joined Trilegal and worked for a few years in the technology and M&A practice group. It was in 2014 that I decided to move to OLX given the amazing opportunity it presented to work closely with the business and to live to be part of the consequences of my decisions.

Is there anything you’d like to share with our lawyers of the future, any golden piece of advice from the treasure trove of your experiences in the industry, success mantra or tips for lawyers wanting to move to an in-house role?

For our global legal team, we have formulated a set of “OLX Legal Factors” which can be viewed as value traits that help you become successful in your role as an in-house counsel. The factors are inspired by “Reebok Rules” first published in 1992 by Jack Douglas who was the General Counsel for Reebok. Some of my favourite ones are:

• Be part of the business – in fact, you are the business.
• Anticipate Issues – learn, educate, be proactive, not reactive.
• Eliminate “no” from the vocabulary.
• Keep it simple – and get to the point!
• Stay focused on what’s important – not everything deserves an “A” effort.
• Get to know your clients as people.
• Listen – there is a reason you have two ears and one mouth!
• Make the coffee – no one is bigger than the smallest part.
• Hire people better than you – “A” players hire “A” players; “B” players hire “C” players.

Other than work, what else keeps you busy? Would you please share your other interests and hobbies with our readers.

One of the tasks which I have gladly transformed into a hobby is investment—learning more about it, putting it to practice and hopefully making it work.  

Thank you so much for doing this interview with us, Mr Chandan. As a parting note, would you please recommend to our readers your favourite book or movie/series that left a lasting impression on you.

One of my favourite books is “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell. The book is an interesting treatise on what makes some people successful. It is a delightful read and it leaves you mulling over its hypothesis for days afterwards.

Attention

BW Legal World in association with BW Businessworld is excited to launch the inaugural edition of the BW Legal World Top 100 GC List 2020 to celebrate the leadership in law in India.

Click the link below to nominate the best General Counsel.

BW Legal World GC100

Follow #BWLegalWorld & #BWLegalWorldGC100 on LinkedIn for regular updates about the most awaited GC event of the year.