In Conversation with Payal Khanna, Director- Legal & Compliance, Volvo Cars India

Ms Khanna, you are a second-generation lawyer and started your career in commercial practice. Tell us about the formative years of your illustrious journey.

Payal Khanna: Immediately after completing high school, I decided to do 5 years of law course at Amity Law School, Delhi. During my final year of law at Amity, I received a pre-placement offer at one of the leading law firms, Vaish Associates & Advocates- New Delhi. I initially worked with their corporate team on diverse corporate matters and commercial litigation issues. Vaish Associates being one of the leading tax firms in Delhi, I later got the opportunity to work with the Tax Team of Vaish Associates and practised Indirect Taxes for few years. 

Then I joined Luthra & Luthra Offices and worked with their Indirect Tax & Corporate Team. In 2011, 

I decided to move in-house and joined Pepsico India’s Legal team and handled legal matters for their beverage and food business including 24 manufacturing locations and 8 regional offices. 

I was majorly handling their most complex and high stake litigations spread across the country along with providing business support to day to day business operations. I was also involved in their critical business projects and lead Pepsico’s GST implementation in 2017 as the ‘Project Lead’ for entire business operations.  High paced and complex environment at Pepsico immensely enhanced my learning curve as an inhouse lawyer as I grew up the ranks in the company in equally fast manner. 

To further augment my learning, I decided to switch industries and joined Volvo Cars India as their General Counsel in 2019. The journey has been quite exciting since I joined and learned the business nua especially when the automotive industry in India is going through a complete transformation. 

What were your days at Amity Law School like? How did you create your opportunities in terms of internships and exposure?

Payal Khanna : 5 years of law school were a lot of fun. We were situated on a close-knit campus in New Friends Colony, Delhi where we had lot of opportunities for interactions with our seniors and juniors at law school. This has helped me immensely in building my network which still exists through quite active Amity Alumni Group of more 300+ lawyers. 

At law school, we had very active ‘Moot Court Committee’ in which I actively contributed to organising inter-college moot court competitions. 

In my view internships play a very important role in your initial days of learning. I interned at different types of places right from senior counsels, litigation firms and corporate firms such as Karanjawala & Co, Dua Associates, Sr, Advocate Mr. Chandioke etc. During my time seeking internships at top law firms was relatively easier as compared to these days where it has become highly competitive. I applied for internship opportunities at designated email IDs or through references. I made a conscious choice of working at different types of firms so that I can experience different spheres of litigation and corporate work which helped me to decide later my area of legal interests once I graduate from law school. 

You started your career at a prominent law firm and worked with leading law firms before moving in-house and acing your role across different sectors. Was it a conscious choice to keep reinventing yourself?

Payal Khanna: I have always been a person who likes to learn new things and try innovative ways to work smarter & efficiently. This not only helped me to break the monotony in day-to-day lives and repetitive work which we end up doing after practising in particular legal area after couple of years. During my law firm days, I worked on diverse areas of laws right from labour laws, corporate laws, FEMA, indirect tax laws, competition laws etc. This supported me to widen my horizons and handle clients from different industries. I wrote lot of legal opinions which trained me to get deeper into legal problems and analyse it from all perspective. On the other hand, being an active litigation lawyer, the court room practice really excited me and gave me the confidence to handle complex legal problems in a good way. After couple of years of law firm practice, I decided to move in-house as I wanted to experience the other side of the table and doing something different. The in-house legal industry was just picking up in 2011 when I joined Pepsico’s Legal team. But I was quite particular in choosing the right in-house legal team as well as I did while working in law firms. At Pepsico we were bunch of 15 inhouse lawyers in India who handled multiple legal problems and I am very proud to say that we operated in a very agile manner like a full in-house service law firm by managing a lot of work in-house and externalising it only to validate our legal views or to get an expert advise on a particular area of law. I continue to practice this approach even at Volvo Cars. 

Volvo is one of the leading global auto manufacturers. Tell us about your role as a General Counsel of one of the biggest auto brands in the world.

At Volvo Cars India, I am responsible for overall legal and compliance matters for India operations which include National Sales Company, Assembly Plant, Logistics and upcoming Tech hub.  I am part of the senior management team and work very closely with the Managing Director and business teams on all legal matters including general corporate advisory, contracts management, company secretarial, consumer litigations and arbitration matters. I invest a lot of time in educating the business teams to understand legal nuances so that I can try and make them understand the importance of legal framework and enhance their knowledge to handle daily operations. This is very important especially in the current environment when the automotive industry in India is going through a transformation and moving towards electrification and online sales. There is a lot of action happening in the regulatory framework in India so it is quite important to remain up to speed and keep business teams informed of these changes. 

Accelerated technology adoption has become a talking point in the post-pandemic world. From LMS to document management systems, is there a tech toolkit every company can adopt? What do in-house legal departments of the future look like? 

Payal Khanna: I feel very strongly about digital transformation and truly believe that it is the need of the hour and very critical for the future. Especially in India, I think the legal profession has been quite late to adopt technology because of the mindset and unwillingness to move to paperless. But the pandemic has forced all lawyers to adopt this change and it has proved to be beneficial in many ways. While I still feel courtrooms' effectiveness cannot be replaced with online hearings, but through the adoption of tech toolkits in form of online contact management, litigation management and research solutions can help the in-house legal immensely to work in an efficient manner particular to meet the expectations of business teams in a fast-paced environment. These tool kits to a large extent can help to support the company to encourage a more process-driven culture.

Jack of all trades or a ‘legal business strategist’, how would you describe the evolving role of an in-house counsel today

Payal Khanna: The role of the In-house lawyer has gone through a sea change. We are no longer considered merely a support function but are seen as a ‘legal business strategist’, having seat at the table amongst the Board and are considered an important advisor in key business strategies of the company. This largely has happened when the organisations are looking at in-house lawyers being a ‘Business Enabler’ to help the business achieve its goals in a legal and compliant manner. A large responsibility is also on us to continue active engagement with business teams to understand their expectations and enable them to think long term. Lawyers are trained in this manner and can largely contribute to business success by being a key business strategist. 

What are the governance and sectoral compliances unique to working in the auto sector?

Payal Khanna: In the traditional set-up, the automotive sector was majorly under the purview of motor vehicle, consumer protection and competition law regulations. 

But the scope is widening now wherein with the business model changes the automotive industry are being subject to environmental regulations, advertising laws, FDI and RBI norms etc as well. Truly exciting times ahead.

In the absence of a data protection bill, how are in-house legal departments responding to the challenge of protecting data? 

Payal Khanna: Seeing from the automotive industry lens, in my view, we are still on the journey. In India, the data protection laws are not there yet and it has got more delayed lately due to the ‘personal data bill’ being scrapped. While the western countries are quite evolved with mature data protection laws, India is still immature and hence we in-house lawyers in India would foremost need to have a stable law to understand and address the challenges under the data protection laws.   

Do you see organisations becoming more sensitive towards mental health and employee wellbeing in the hybrid working model?

Payal Khanna: Yes I totally agree. This is very much relevant in India where we had a very long covid situation with most of us working permanently at home for almost 2 years. With work-from-home situations where we do not get to meet face to face and many of us dealing with serious covid situations, emotional well-being has been a focus area. 

At Volvo Cars India, the organisation has introduced a lot of ways through which employees can express their mental condition and seek expert advise. The company made special efforts to introduce flexible ways of working to balance professional and personal priorities which have helped to navigate the tough times we have been facing for the past 2 years. 

What will be your piece of advice for aspiring and young lawyers looking to make a career as In-house Counsel?

Payal Khanna: I would encourage all aspiring lawyers planning to move in-house to consider these aspects while making this decision : 

1. Be open to learning something new and unlearn many things – Things are different in law firms v in-house; 

2. Try to simplify and look at the legal problem with a solution mindset. This would help you to be more effective with business colleagues; 

3. Practice being a business lawyer and open to learning from your business colleagues ;

4. Be fearless and be a role model to build an ethical culture in the organisation ; 

5. Focus on legal training to create awareness and making your jobs easier. 

Would you please recommend any book that has left a lasting impression on your mind?

I would like to mention two books, Lean In- Sheryl Sandberg and My Life in Full- Indra Nooyi. They both are must read