In-house interview

For B4U Television’s director and head legal Natasha Fernandes, sustaining a small TV and movie distribution company’s business in the face of a regulatory threat to its main revenue model – advertisements – is the biggest challenge.

Ostro Energy general counsel (GC) Rachika Sahay, who just closed her seventh power deal in less than two years said that in house roles are no less “grilling and consuming” than law firm life.

The ex-general counsel (GC) of UTV-founder Ronnie Screwvala’s fund Unilazer Ventures, Archana Rajaram, left the company to go independent this month, now advising the venture capital funds Unilazer Ventures, IDG Ventures and Matrix Partners and others as an independent general counsel.

When 28 years after its birth, India’s most-diversified financial institution that’s not a bank, Bajaj Finance, looked inward, it realised it was short of a legal team comparable to the company’s overall size and rate of diversification. The company’s legal department was understaffed: a total of six in-house lawyers present to handle the documentation and litigation arising out of a portfolio of 11 non-banking financing (NBFC) businesses.

Read how the company hired Sapan Gupta from Standard Chartered and began its facelift.

Cognizant APAC GC Anand Bhushan explains how the team has turned from “cost center” to business “partner”.

When a call from the makers of Johnnie Walker interrupted an evening of drinks for Mamta Sundara four years ago, she had to politely ask them to introduce themselves beyond their name, which she’d never heard of. Click to continue reading about Sundara’s multifaceted career and role heading up Diageo’s legal team in India…

After joining The Walt Disney Company India as associate principal counsel from J Sagar Associates (JSA), Naina Chhugani was quickly disabused of the notion that in-house is nothing but a post box. Instead, as studios and TV content head, she now knows the media business “inside-out”, practices cutting-edge law and has seen a half-billion dollar takeover first hand.

And Disneyland is apparently not half-bad either.

Exclusive: “I don’t wish it on my worst enemy, and it’s not just a question of wanting to keep the record for myself,” jokes Andre Jerome about whether he’s ever likely to see a comparable case.

It is surprising that Jerome still has a sense of humour about it - as general counsel (GC) of Vodafone India Services Private Limited, he was literally at the beginning, middle and end of the storm surrounding its four-year court battle with the tax man.