We had the pleasure of chatting with Louise Rooney, General Counsel & Company Secretary at Precinct Properties, where she leads the legal and health & safety team and supports the Board across governance and compliance. Recently stepping into the executive team, Louise admits she hesitated at first, wary of the impact on the balance.
She shares how that transition has shaped her leadership, how flexibility works in practice for her small but mighty team, and why she’s still holding out hope for a tech fix to minute-taking.
Tell us a bit about your current role at Precinct, what your work involves, and what you enjoy most.
My role at Precinct is General Counsel & Company Secretary – I lead the legal and health & safety team, but also engage with our Board in my capacity as Company Secretary.
My work covers the full span of our business, from working with our external counsel to negotiate large scale transactions, giving advice to our development and leasing teams, answering questions from the retail team managing Commercial Bay, through to ensuring we meet our compliance obligations (AML, NZX Listing Rules, Privacy Act etc).
What I enjoy most about my role is the awesome people - the Precinct team is small (only 100 of us) but incredibly high-performing. Everyone works hard, is super smart, and we are all driven by a clear common purpose. It's also pretty cool to work on projects that transform central Auckland and Wellington and make our cities a vibrant place.
"What I enjoy most about my role is the awesome people... Everyone works hard, is super smart, and we are all driven by a clear common purpose." | ||||
As a new member of the executive team, how has the transition shaped your role, and what unique value do General Counsels bring at this level?
To be honest, it’s been a gradual transition as I was wary of what it would mean for my work-life balance. I have 2 primary-school aged sons and work 4 days a week - I wasn’t ready to give that up. Our CEO is incredibly supportive and has been giving me the chance to get involved at an Executive level for a while now, convincing me that it was the right move. It’s great to have the official recognition and several female colleagues have told me that I need to lean into the opportunity, which I have taken to heart.
I believe General Counsels bring a balanced overview of the whole business to the executive team. As our work is so cross-functional, we have insights across the business that many execs may not. We also bring a risk-based view of the world, and with a seat at the executive table, we can participate in strategic decisions from a place of authority.
Can you tell us about the team and how you make flexibility and connection work in practice?
My team consists of two Senior Legal Counsel, a Senior Health & Safety Adviser and me. I’m super lucky because they are all very senior and fabulous people and we don’t have to work hard to connect, we all just really enjoy each other’s company! Given Precinct is in the business of commercial real estate, we walk the talk and typically work from the office, rather than from home.
For me, flexibility is having my Tuesdays off, although I am realistic about being available. If I work on a Tues, I might leave early one day, or if I have a board meeting that means I need to be in the office, I can switch to another day off that week. I hope my team always knows they can make their hours work for them. Two have young children so they may come in late after drop-off, work from home if a wee one is ill or work remotely on a Friday if they want to visit family out of town. The other team member has an unquenchable thirst for learning, and at times she has worked compressed hours so she can pursue her studies.
What opportunities (or challenges!) are top of mind for you and your legal team right now, and how do you plan to address them?
It’s cliché but leveraging AI technology to help us perform more efficiently and spend more of our time on interesting work. I’ve tasked my team with going out and scouting ideas from other small in-house teams. Everyone is struggling with this at the moment, and I don’t believe we have to come up with a solution on our own.
What is the one piece of technology, either current or yet to be created, that would make your day job easier?
Minute taking! It’s the one thing I dread and put off until the last minute – when I know full well I should do it straight away. I’ve debated whether we should be using AI functionality to take our minutes but there are two real hurdles: security/legal concerns; and accuracy. We have ok’d it for internal and project meetings but haven’t found that it performs that well, particularly if everyone is physically present in the room together, it can’t really identify who is speaking. When it comes to our Board minutes, I’m not comfortable with a full transcript being stored somewhere that could undermine the officially approved (and judiciously edited) version. So, if someone could please fix those two problems, that would be fab, thanks!
Ngā mihi nui, Louise, for sharing your reflections on leadership, balance, and what it means to grow into influence, and finding the right pace. Thank you for sharing with Aotearoa's in-house legal community.