You Need The Right Means And The Right Ends: Sheela Vadavalli, VP, Legal & Compliance Officer, Mylan Pharmaceuticals

Ms Vadavalli, what were the formative years of your illustrious journey like?

My journey as an in- house counsel actually started in the year 1995. When I completed my company secretaryship and law, I got my first break and then landed a job in a conglomerate. 

At that point in time, that organization was working on a business restructuring project, and they presented a great opportunity to actually work with then the company secretary and the head of legal in coming up with a draft or a proposal on the corporate restructuring, keeping in view the provisions of various laws and including of course the tax laws. In the formative years of my career, I focused mainly on learning with an open mind.

I try to avoid getting into silos mentally on my work profile. Anything and everything that came my way, be it matters relating to various facets of law, company secretarial function, accounting, finance, investor relations, treasury, cost accounting statements, batch manufacturing records, working capital statements, so name anything, anything that came my way, I picked it up and the focus was on learning. 

The reason is, when you pursue your studies, your academics, the focus is more on gaining the theoretical knowledge, but when you take up the first employment opportunity or practice for that matter, that's when you really see the practical aspects on how you marry the provisions of law with that of business. I think that gave me a tremendous opportunity and laid the foundation for me to gain the all- round perspective on various nuances of business, law, finance, operations and commerce, and then the inter linkages between many of these aspects. 

Liberalisation, certainly in 91, opened a floodgate of opportunities for the industry as such, and also of course, for the professionals, which we have successfully capitalized. Thereafter Of course, I had a short stint with a medium sized company, but again and I think that was the place where I accumulated a wealth of experience, I really got to work on a lot of things in a smaller company and it certainly gave me an opportunity to understand the various facets of the organization. Thereafter, I moved into the healthcare sector, and now I work with Mylan which is a Viatris company. 

Here, I have been for more than 20 plus years, in the whole gamut of my experience, I have handled various areas of law and corporate affairs, internal orders, compliance, company secretarial functions and M&A work. Most interestingly, I also had the brave feet of taking a completely different responsibility besides law, which is the role of business planning. 

In this role, I had the opportunity to handle business and to kind of look at business from the other side of the table. This experience certainly gave me a deeper insight into the business, into operations, various processes involved in those operations, planning and so on. I always believed in sincerity in the efforts.

I didn’t want to handle things unless I know and learn them professionally. But I always thought academics are very important, not for the sake of getting a qualification but they do really give you that complete understanding on the science and the art behind each of these aspects. Continuous learning is important. As one climbs up the managerial hierarchy, as the title of Marshall Goldsmith says, what got you here, won't get you there. Towards this endeavor, I attended an executive program at Stanford University, which gave me a wonderful perspective on the managerial thinking and problem- solving techniques. I enrolled for and completed a senior executive management program from Indian Institute of Management Kolkata, which gave me a deeper understanding of various aspects of strategy, marketing, finance, sourcing, etc. 

I think the key to success if I can put it that way is, being in the right place at the right time. When you think there's nothing new to learn, or when you don't think that you're enjoying your work, i think that's the time when someone should seriously consider a shift, because it's not the amount of time you have spent but it's the learning that you have gained and the kind of value you have contributed to the business, to the industry and the society at large. 

My learning and growth are more characterized by the evolution of the business, technology and maximizing the opportunities associated with this. Over a period of time, we build our individual brand. That brand is characterized by who we are, not merely as a domain expert, but more as a person. It's not just merely about how good you are as a lawyer, but it's more about how good you are as a human being and more in terms of your professionalism, your ethical standards, your integrity and team spirit. I think, these are certainly the benchmarks of any good professional. 

How have you seen the role of the general counsel evolving over the last two decades?

As we keep climbing the ladder, the requirements of business and expertise is certainly not limited by the domain expertise. So, as we keep climbing the ladder, I think the expectation is more on the general managerial skills and a little less on the domain. I'm not saying one should not have, they certainly must have, but that's the baseline. The requirement is more on having the other skills. It's more in terms of ability, to anticipate this, connect dots, manage and mitigate a risk. These qualities determine how much can you and your team add value to the business, how much can your team and the senior leadership depend on you as a leader.

I think, in the early 90s, no one had visualized how the role of the General Counsel is going to evolve two decades later, In the early part of my career, when I used to attend criminal courts or police stations, and I don't think many of them have seen women attending police stations unless they are themselves, the affected party, but certainly not as a representative of any organization. So, during those days when I used to attend, I particularly remember one experience where I was present in a metropolitan magistrate court and then the Honorable Judge actually guided me to a family court. 

So, he didn't think that I'm representing an organization because either you see women who are practicing more as an advocate or as a complainant or as an effective party but, not as a representative of an organization. It took a while for my counsel to actually explain the judge that she is the representative of the organization so, I think those were the days. 

From then we have really reached to an era where the importance and the potential of in- house counsels in general and the general counsels in particular has grown by leaps and bounds. With the teams assuming greater roles as transaction lawyers, litigation counsels, strategist, business counsels, compliance professionals, internal auditors, are more so the gatekeepers in general. We certainly have moved from a need based era and reached a stage today where legal is very much a strategic partner to the business, and operations. In fact I'm so proud of the general counsel today and the industry in general as to how the role of GCs has evolved over a period of time.

The job description of the General Counsel is constantly evolving, with managing the legal function being the baseline. Working with the policymakers, communications, handling investor relations, community welfare and development, environment sustainability are some of the few areas that today’s General Counsels are partnering. 

Nurturing young talent, working on gender diversity, helping teams learn, grow, perform, and ensure that you have a succession team is one of the very important jobs of today’s General Counsel. Given that we are slowly coming out of the pandemic, I think there will be a significant focus on cost and efficiency. 

Domain expertise coupled with understanding of the business crucial for today's General Counsel

What does work as a General Counsel at Mylan Pharmaceuticals look like?

In my current role as a general counsel of Mylan pharmaceuticals, Viatris company for the Indian growth markets, we support around 150 Plus markets, and I'm proud to lead a team of 25 plus lawyers from various geographies across the globe. We truly work seamlessly, literally, at any point of time there is someone or the other working due to the different time zones. The key I think is, appreciating the cultural differences, respecting each other's views, giving them that liberty, that free hand, that respect. I think, together we can build very strong legal teams.

Could you please briefly tell us your experience of working amid the pandemic?

Unprecedented times, are always associated with unprecedented challenges and the solutions. People learn to adapt to new ways of life, the scale and the magnitude of the challenge the whole world witnessed in the year 2020 due to pandemic is very difficult to to elaborate, but no one can dispute that not a single individual or an industry or any government for that matter has remained unaffected. 

This was a time in particular for the healthcare industry to step up and demonstrate its commitment to various governments across the globe in dealing with pandemic, a Herculean task indeed, given the lockdowns across the globe. 

There was a state of standstill due to lockdown and you still have to work with the machinery and the customers to get the operations up and running and ensure that there is a steady flow of the life- saving medicines to the patients and to the governments across the globe. 

This certainly involves partnership with your internal stakeholders with various functions, policymakers, chambers of commerce, and law enforcement agencies amongst others, ensuring that your people are staying safe and healthy and helping them and their families to deal with any eventualities is certainly not an easy ask. 

Technology will certainly play a very big role in ensuring that we work smarter. General Counsel need to have a blueprint on the quality and the quantity of the generalists and specialists they need to have to achieve this objective in a meaningful manner. 

Given that every country in the world is at a different stage in implementing  their own set of data protection laws, with some of them, inclined more towards European GDPR like South Korea, Brazil, South Africa, for example, while few others are taking a more diluted version. I think this will be the next big wave across the globe. In terms of the opportunity for today's in- house counsel. 

In my opinion, any in- house counsel who is a domain expert at the same time understands the business and has additional expertise particularly on some of the niche areas of law, for example, environment, data protection, regulatory law, can bring in a great value to the organization and prove to be a great asset to the organization and to the industry.

What would be your message to young generation of lawyers?

In terms of my message to the young generation of lawyers, I would talk of three key points. The first thing is to invest time in learning and gaining exposure to various facets of law, aspects of business, finance, accounting, compliance, economy, changing policy regimes across the globe. 

This will certainly help develop a long- term vision and a holistic perspective on things and get a better understanding of the linkages between business, law and society. I must say I always challenge my team, my colleagues that you need to know business the way business works. I think gone are the days when legal used to be perhaps a tick box. As a legal team, we understand business. We understand numbers. I think that is the key and that's very much fundamental for anybody to be a good in- house counsel.

Second, clarity of thought and communication is so much important, and they need to act as a bridge, a bridge between business and legal, between business and government, between the external counsel and legal. Only if they understand, they can dissect the information and provide it in a more- simpler form to the stakeholders. 

Third, last but not the least, in my opinion, the lawyers also need to know when to say no. What I mean by that, while it's true, that business does not want to hear no, what it actually means is for business challenges, you are required to provide legally enforceable solutions that meet the business requirements. At the same time as a general counsel, you also need to know the key is not just on how you're doing but also what is being done. You need the right means and the right ends. It's a collective responsibility of everyone towards nation building, I think professionalism and ethics and integrity is very important towards nation building and towards organizational sustainability.