KPMG Legal Reimagined Nordic and Baltic’s Newsletter

This is a newsletter issued by the KPMG Legal Reimagined Nordic and Baltic Group, a collaborative initiative since 2021 with the aim to revolutionize the legal landscape within our region. 

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Purpose of this series is to check in with legal leaders out there that are transforming for the future and set out on a journey to improve and develop as a legal function and team.

The first person to be interviewed is Lina Heyman, General Counsel, leading the Legal & Business Affairs function at STIM based in Stockholm, Sweden.

Hi Lina and welcome to our Legal Reimagined Trail Blazing Legal Leaders series!
Tell us a bit about STIM, what it is it that you do exactly?  

“STIM is a member organisation representing more than 105,000 affiliated music creators and publishers. We make sure the people behind the music gets paid when their music is played thereby providing the conditions for creativity and regrowth in the Swedish music industry.  STIM strives to ensure that there are strong copyright laws in place with the aim to have a sustainable music industry.”

That is a great, meaningful mission, and also cool as a legal team to work in an organisation that has truly legal dimensions at the core of business. What would you say is your mission as a legal team and your contribution to the overall mission of STIM?

“Working at Legal & Business Affairs at STIM comprises everything from securing music creators' remuneration through negotiations and licensing deals, to addressing and explaining the important role copyright plays for creators both in Sweden and globally and to contribute to updating and adjusting the legal framework so that it fits in the ever-changing music industry. 

The team encompasses Legal Counsels, a Public Affairs Manager and a Compliance Manager. Together, we handle issues across STIM's entire business. We are passionate about giving the best advice to the business on every issue and at the same time directing our efforts to the issue that provides the most benefit to STIM's business and rightsholders.”

Yes, that is so important – to allocate the legal team as a “corporate resource” to the work that brings most benefit and value to the business and key stakeholders. What are some ways do you think, as a legal team, to understand what brings most value and what you need to do to make sure you channel your efforts to those things and don’t spread thin across too many competing needs. 

"The simple answerer is: go back to your company’s or organization’s mission. Who are you meant to create value for? What value is that? And; which legal and compliance areas are affecting those goals in a substantial way? 

As a lawyer we are trained to deliver a correct answer covering all aspects and possible scenarios. With the ever-increasing number of rules and legislation it is becoming more and more challenging to deliver that in every situation. Therefore, you need to concentrate your efforts. And the value you create as a lawyer is not to recite legislation it is to help the organization achieve its goals with the law as a tool. We actually put that into a new tagline for us: “the business is our goal – law is our tool”. 

Yes, focus is key, and cool that you have your own tagline! Communication is important. 

We know you are on a journey as a function and as a team to evolve for the future and are curious, what was the trigger for starting this journey? Can you put it into context?

“I would say it was two things - timing and mandate. STIM, as a whole, developed and launched a new strategy, which created rationale to look into our strategy and approach too and also momentum for change across the organization, that we also could tap into. A lot of things are happening in our industry and it’s important to understand the change and implications it has and it offers great timing to zoom out as a legal team too and reflect on what matters and why. To revisit STIM’s who and why and the legal function in this. 

One of the first things you did was to start a book club. That’s interesting. Can you tell us more about that?

“Yes that’s right. When we started our journey with legal operations I brought onboard Paul Stuart who had done a similar journey before. He started a Book Club in the team. The idea was to get inspired on new ways of thinking and doing stuff. It gave opportunity for the team to step out of the daily legal work, embrace new perspectives and challenge some old ways of thinking. It also helped us sort out where we needed to make changes and where not to.”

Super initiative! Love the people focus and getting inspiration for the change. And then, when you kicked off your change journey, where did you start? What were some things you did first? 

“We decided we first needed to understand our current state, our baseline. To understand this, we felt it was important to bring in outside-in experience. It is easy as a team to just keep on working with what’s on your plate every day and not take the time to zoom out and reflect on if perhaps there are new and better ways to do legal work or bring value as a legal team, and even to know what great looks like. It is helpful to get some external input and do some horizon scanning. 

So, an important first step we took was to do a more thorough analysis of our current state. We interviewed both the legal team and the management team on how the legal team was perceived and where the potential to leverage the competencies were. We felt it was important to try to get a more diverse, 360 view with both the perspectives of the team and of key business stakeholders.” 

That is a really good way to understand needs properly and also get buy-in for the change. What did you do then?

“Next step was to define the relevant change need for us and to set a plan on the steps we would take moving forward. We appointed a lead person with experience from implementing legal operations initiatives. Also, as a team we set a goal of dedicating at least 20 % of our time to changing or ways of working and setting up new ones.”

That 20% commitment is great! Developing and improving is actually an important part of the job, to be more successful and impactful with the legal work too. And if you don’t time box this type of work, and commit to it and value it, it has this tendency to slip down in your priority list. 

And then you started to implement? 

“Yes, next step was to simply get going. What we realized when we started to implement is that change takes time, and it requires bandwidth. It’s easy to underestimate the efforts involved and what it required from the team. One challenge can be the classic lawyer role that I mentioned before, being the expert on everything legal. Changing from that to being the expert on central legal issues for your organization can be scary. You have to respect that and create an environment where people of the team can air their concerns but still keep on the path.” 

Yes, resourcing for change is important, and there is a lot of human transformation involved. 

How did you align your initiatives to business or involve your stakeholders in your change? Given that there can be trade-offs involved in breaking the status quo, have you experienced any resistance from business stakeholders and if so how have you manage that?

“For us what we did in the beginning of our change project, with the management interviews, really helped us get buy-in from management. We have also invited business stakeholders to inspirational lectures hosted by us and have involved Team Leads from business when setting up our new ways of working.”

That is fantastic – kind of creating the solutions together with or at least in close alignment with relevant business stakeholders.

And, speaking of that, we know you worked in the business side at STIM before you took your role as the General counsel. How has this influenced your view on Legal and what you want to build for the future as a function? 

“Yes, before I came on board as General Counsel, I worked many years in STIMs business side. First heading up STIMs licensing deals and international revenues and after that developing services for STIM’s creators, using the principles of Service Design. This was really inspirational and when I came onboard with the Legal team I was convinced that we needed to do something similar. 

I knew we were not leveraging the competence and experience of Legal in the best way, and I think the team felt this too.  The experience from working with of Service Design lead me to Legal operations and all the great work that is being done. It has also really helped me to understand how we can improve as a function since I have experienced being an “internal client” to the legal team. I have simply walked in those shoes myself and can empathize.” 

That is brilliant, translating business thinking and business methodologies into legal.

So, based on your experiences so far, what are some things you have learned and what are some tips you have to others that want to evolve as a function and a team?

“Don’t underestimate the importance of communicating with the team, the internal stakeholders, management and with the wider organization. Also, as a leader, you must stand fast. Change requires commitment, and consistency in where we are going - the goal. You need to stick to the plan and keep the eye on the long-term target. 

Also, there is a whole Legal operations community out there others that have done this type of change or are in the midst of it right now – use it - share experiences!”

Awesome tips! Indeed communication is a key pillar of change management and leadership truly is important, and community! 

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience and perspectives! And enjoy the summer that’s coming up!

“You’re welcome, and thank you! You too!”
 

Interested in learning more how KPMG can support with legal transformation and operations services? Please reach out to Victoria or any of our local contacts below.  

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