The scope of a general counsel or legal chief officer’s responsibilities has expanded manifold over the past decades, as new risk factors emerged at an alarming rate. Think not only digital transformation implications, new data privacy regulations and increased cyber vulnerabilities but also intensifying scrutiny into culture, values and diversity practices; the mounting social call for enhanced sustainability and corporate responsibility; and the now very real post-COVID-19 considerations of workplace safety.
Against such a broad scope of risks and an increasing flow of disruption, Chief Executive partnered with BarkerGilmore, an executive search firm specializing in legal and compliance functions, to survey more than 100 CEOs on the role and value of their GC. What we found is that private companies lag their public counterparts in recognizing the value of the legal chief as a member of the senior executive team (57 percent of private companies do vs. 96 percent of public companies).
Only 40 percent of private company CEOs view their GC as a strategic business partner and a valued member of the leadership team. What’s more, none of the CEOs in our survey say they believe one of their GC’s biggest value contributions is to business strategy.
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