The General Counsel-Chief Executive Officer relationship, post Global Financial Crash, is under strain. The “generic” GC-CEO relationship is not what it should be. Many fear the other, feel frustrated with the other, and feel ambivalent about the other. The problem isn’t about lack of agreement on purpose, but on execution. If GCs won’t exploit their proximity to “the business” why not outsource the lot? “New Law” makes this easier. Equally, the “diving catch”, commonly performed by Legal, is not sustainable. The quality of the GC-CEO relationship is a “top and emerging” risk. Major risk events are inevitable if the GC and CEO fail to work together to create an environment in which a compliant, ethical and purposeful culture can flourish. Leadership and behavioural change consultant, Ciarán Fenton, argues for a shared understanding set out in an internal GC-CEO Memorandum of Understanding, one that addresses both the generic relationship issues and those specific to the organisation. This requires change – on both sides. In this pamphlet, Ciarán sets out the nature of the change required and offers a solution, based on his extensive senior business leadership and consulting experience and his tried and tested model, The Fenton Model™.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Patrick Ambrose is an Irish-qualified lawyer specialising in financial services law. His experience includes investment funds, transactional banking, treasury, derivatives, capital markets and financial services regulation. He holds a degree in business and finance from University College Dublin and lectures at the Law Society of Ireland on topics ranging from prudential regulation to consumer legislation. He is a member of the Law Society of Ireland’s In-house and Public Sector Committee, the Committee of Public Lawyers Association and the Legal Committee of the Irish Banking Federation. He is also a pro bono director at not-for-profit arts company Pallas Studios Limited and has published articles in a number of journals and publications on topical areas of financial services. At the time of publication, he works as a Legal Advisor at Bank of Ireland in Dublin, Ireland.