PROFILE / REBECCA LIM
better for our people and also for our customers, but I do also get struck by the ongoing complexity of our business and the huge amount of change, not just for Westpac but the industry.” From these sessions, she generates ideas around areas such as training and support for teams, as well as prioritisation of work and information-sharing across the teams, which are based in Australia, Asia, New York and London. In addition to sitting with Westpac’s legal teams, Lim also makes time to attend customer events, meet with regulators and spend time with her peers. When asked how she fits this into her working week, she says “lots of lists and lots of prioritisation” is key to structuring her time. “I am very organised. I get teased a lot by my family and by my team,” she laughs. “I sit down once a quarter and work out what it is I think I need to achieve in the next quarter … and then I sit down once a week and say, ‘in my week coming up and in the weeks ahead, is the way I’m spending my time going to enable me and my team to achieve our goals, and if not, how might I structure my week differently?’ ” Lim says this approach allows her to ensure that the work she does each day contributes to the fulfilment of these longer-term goals. “What that
TRENDS SHAPING WESTPAC’S LEGAL NEEDS THE NEW RULES OF BANKING “Governance and regulation surrounding banks and financial services is only going to increase, and that has been with us for a while, and will be with us for some time.” REVOLUTIONISING CUSTOMER INTERACTION “The end customer has much more opportunity to engage with banks and other companies on their own terms. People want to engage with us now on their mobile phones, on their iPads, as well as using traditional bank branches and contact centres … I think for us that’s a really exciting opportunity.” WHAT IT MEANS FOR WESTPAC’S LEGAL TEAMS “This ongoing process of regulations and new rules for banks, and this trend of digitisation … both of those have big implications for the legal teams, and we’re looking to make sure we have the right capabilities both internally and on our panel to enable us to proactively deal with a lot of those issues.”
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helps me to do is make sure I’ve covered off the issues that aren’t necessarily urgent but they’re deeply important,” she explains. “In my line of work if you’re not careful you can spend all your day dealing with the latest emergency to cross your desk, and it’s very important for general counsel, I think, to be taking that horizon-scanning view and looking out for emerging risks and making sure your organisation is prepared for them.”
A BUSINESS WITHIN A BUSINESS Ensuring that Westpac’s legal function is run like a business is one of these longer-term goals. In Lim’s view, in-house teams are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and Westpac’s legal team has its own strategy, which was developed in consultation with the organisation’s lawyers. “With a team of our size it’s very important that we run our function like a business so we have a focus on strategy, on capability, on high performance, on optimising resources, and all of my legal leaders run their own practice groups that way,” she says. “We’ve done some benchmarking tours over the last three years, going to the US and the UK, seeing what’s the absolute best practice in terms of in-house legal teams and how can we benchmark ourselves against that and learn from it.” Lim’s team is currently focused on what she terms ‘the service revolution’. “We’re in an environment where there is increasing pressure and where there is increasing competition. In banking services what will really differentiate us and set us apart is the service we can offer our end customers,” she says. For Westpac’s lawyers, this involves tasks such as simplifying and streamlining legal documentation. Recognising the impact of advances in technology on financial services and its possible legal implications, leaders in legal and compliance roles undertake training in relation to emerging areas such as big data, cybercrime and electronic records. “We are trying to get ahead of what we see as emerging issues for the industry, and making sure that all our lawyers, not just our technology lawyers, know and under stand the new world that they’re going to be advising in,” Lim explains.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PANEL FIRMS While there is considerable legal talent within Westpac’s ranks, external advisers are also used, and