After working for Shell for 28 years, 14 years in General Counsel positions, and having lived in the UK, Germany, The Netherlands and China, Hans wants to share some of his experiences, observations and learnings with others who might find them helpful. 

 

Most recently (2006-2015) he was the General Counsel for Shell’s global downstream business as well as a member of the global downstream business leadership team.  He has held other General Counsel positions (and been a member of the legal leadership team) before and has been on a number of other business leadership teams and boards (including joint ventures).  He has worked in private practice and as a lecturer; and has experience in issues management, government relations and other aspects of public affairs.

 

Hans is passionate about developing people and about working with diverse teams.  He introduced global talent management for Shell Legal, and was the first ever legal talent manager, remaining closely involved as the talent sponsor on the legal leadership team.

 

Over the years, he has built up a wealth of experience on training, coaching and mentoring, and enjoys helping other legal leaders to find solutions to management challenges and issues – be it by developing solutions for them, by working together, or by (initially) just offering a sympathetic sounding board – something he  found many leaders are lacking within their own organisations.

 

In addition to his interests in people development, having been in charge of managing the relationships with a number of law firms, been involved in various panels and having seen numerous pitches over many years, he has ample experience of how law firms can win or lose business, and how they can be better business partners. 

 

Given his experience his support could be particularly useful in the following areas:

 

• Organisation, reorganisation

• Integration and change management

• Interim management

• Efficiency improvements and cost saving

• Working with outside counsel

• Providing feedback to outside counsel – what clients want…

• Business Partnering

• Diversity: Understanding and managing cultural differences/working across boundaries

• Difficult meetings and conversations

• Difficult decisions (e.g. redundancies or appraisals)

• Relationship issues

• Personal reputation issues

• Personal crisis management: How to turn mistakes into winning?

• Personal career development