Thank you, Eddie.
I was delighted to be invited to introduce the third annual ILO European Counsel Awards this evening, and it is a great privilege to play host to so many senior corporate counsel who are here with us tonight.
The aim of the awards is a bold one – to find and recognize the best in-house lawyers in the world. Candidates are nominated in this lofty pursuit based on their communication skills, commercial awareness, management skills, and ultimately their ability to add value to their companies.
ACC Europe aspires to be the number one peer forum for all in-house counsel in Europe and is dedicated to promoting the interests of the in-house legal profession. Our core mission is precisely to find ways to help counsel add value.
We are very pleased to co-sponsor the awards and to present them to you this evening.
The Association of Corporate Counsel is a global organization of in-house legal professionals headquartered in Washington, D.C. My colleague Fred Krebs, President of ACC will be addressing you later tonight and will tell you more about the global organization. Our motto is “by in-house, for in-house”.
In Europe, in particular, we have over 1,200 members in all the major European markets, and we are Europe’s leading organization for the in-house legal profession. Our members have access to a number of helpful tools and opportunities to fulfill continuous legal education requirements. We offer local events and training programs, and most importantly a network for in-house lawyers, where our members are empowered to share their “war stories” and learn from each other’s experience.
Our annual conference is a great example of how in-house counsel come together in this unique peer forum to share experiences and exchange practical tips, which go well beyond academic knowledge. This year our 17th annual conference is in Vienna, on May 30th to June 1st, and our timely theme is “Strategic Risk Management: Art or Science?”. I encourage you all to come and join us there.
I believe the theme of our Annual Conference goes in the heart of what it means to add value. We add value by steering and navigating our companies away from risk, towards opportunity; by first and foremost recognizing the risks facing our companies. And in order to do just that, we must first know our business. In-house counsels are uniquely placed for achieving this intimate and thorough understanding, in a way that no external advisor, no matter how accomplished in their field can achieve.
And we also add value by taking a pragmatic rather than a legalistic approach. Averting the risks is only half the job done. Realizing opportunities and working along our business partners to achieve the business objectives is the other half of the job. Our advice is short and to the point. We know that our clients don’t want to know in too many words why they can’t do something, but rather how they can do it and what is the risk involved. After all, the law is an ocean of grey with only narrow strips of black or white along its shores, and provided we have a clear vision of the black and white strips, our job is to measure the depth in the grey areas.
Armed with a moral compass in one hand and a pragmatic sextant in the other, we navigate this ocean onboard a ship called Integrity. We are not constantly preoccupied with covering our backs by dressing up our advice with more caveats rather than practical options, but neither do we shy away from responsibility when things go wrong. We take ownership of the issues, tackle the difficulties and embrace opportunity, but like Odysseus we take the precaution of always discretely tying ourselves on the central mast, that which stands for our professional independence and we are never seduced by the sirens of easy but dubious profit. Because we know that “shortcuts” are not the path towards opportunity, but rather will lead our vessel aground over the reefs and perils of reckless risk-taking.
It is through this unique ability to safely navigate the seas of legal uncertainty through waves that resemble bright mountains of opportunity and dark valleys of risk, that we manage to add value, and so we will rightly be discussing in Vienna this year issues around “Enterprise Risk Management”, “Ethics and Compliance Programs”, “Legal Risk Profile and Challenges in Eastern Europe”, “How to Thrive and Win in a Risky World”, etc.
Last, but not least, I put to you that we add value by embracing higher contemporary and yet eternal corporate values, by championing corporate social responsibility in our organizations, not because it is trendy, but because it is right, and by doing our bit to show that business is more than just about my profit or your deficit, or about our bottom line, to show that business at the end of the day is about people, for as Protagoras used to say “Πάντων χρημάτων άνθρωπός μέτρον εστι” (which you might translate as “man is the measure of all things”).
Now, in coming up with this year’s shortlist to find the most successful navigators, the best in-house lawyers, ILO and ACC Europe consulted with those individuals who know from deep experience and daily practice what it means to add real value – senior in-house counsel and law firm partners. No candidate can make the list without multiple nominations, and awards are presented in categories for which more than 200 nominations were received. It’s my pleasure to ask you to join me in celebrating the recognition of those who have met these demanding criteria. They are the leaders of our profession.
So with that, I will turn back over to Eddie to proceed with the presentations. We will not have any acceptance speeches, but we would ask the winners to come to the stage when their name is called to receive their trophy and have their photograph taken.
Thank you.
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