Can you tell us about your current role at Lightspeed, what you love about it and what it is teaching you about yourself?
I am an Assistant General Counsel and have both a regional and a vertical (product) focus, reporting into our Chief Legal Officer. I am essentially the head of legal for our APAC region, but also in charge of legal support for our largest product vertical, Retail.
Lightspeed is a commerce platform and under the Retail vertical we have:
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3 point-of-sale products, including our flagship POS, formerly Vend (for those who remember the NZ tech success company). I originally joined Vend and we were acquired by Lightspeed just a few months into my new role!
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2 ecommerce products
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1 supplier product, and
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financial services offerings.
I love the variety of my role. One minute I’m preparing for a commercial litigation, next I’m reviewing an APAC employee policy, and then finishing the day supporting the business on a product launch.
This has taught me to be adaptable and that I really need to remain organised in the chaos to ensure I can manage my and my team’s workloads.
Can you share some insights or key learnings from your experience in the technology, commercial, and financial services sectors, particularly focusing on data protection and compliance?
In my prior role at Vista Group, I was deeply immersed in the GDPR as it was coming into force when I joined. This involved ensuring our business was ready to comply with a new set of privacy obligations. I learnt quickly that we had to translate the legislation into business speak and give them clear guidance and processes to follow to ensure we were compliant. I’ve taken that same approach with me for other compliance projects.
Most recently, my role at Lightspeed has had a focus on financial services compliance. Prior to the switch in-house, I was in the Financial Services team at Chapman Tripp, which has proven beneficial in having foundational knowledge of such a highly regulated industry.
I have learnt that, in order to advise the business on compliance with complex payments regulations, you must have an understanding of how the payments industry works and where your business fits into it. To do this I have spent time on deep dive sessions with colleagues who have vast experience in this area and also undertaken a lot of independent research - many a tab was opened.
How have you approached building and fostering a productive and positive team culture throughout your roles?
I aim to be approachable and transparent with my team. Providing context on why we are doing things a certain way and explaining where their work fits into our overall business strategy so they understand that it’s meaningful.
I want my team to be comfortable coming to me for advice or a brainstorming session. I love working through any challenges they are facing and how we can unblock them or teach them to approach them in a different way. I genuinely want to unlock each member of my team’s potential.