Rachel Hyland meets Funke Abimbola
We are delighted to welcome a new addition to the team – the inspiring Funke Abimbola. Awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017 for services to diversity in the legal profession and to young people, Funke is an active campaigner for equality, diversity and inclusion. As well as working as a corporate lawyer, Funke is a public speaker, BBC media contributor and author of ‘Climbing Mountains: My 5-Stage Journey to Resilient Leadership’, a book in which she shares her personal journey to becoming a resilient leader.
I meet up with her today to find out about her legal life – why she moved in-house and what connections she has with the healthcare sector. I also get to hear her take on how she resonates with TLD’s strapline: Accessible. Different. Human.
So, Funke, can you tell me more about your career history?
I initially qualified in-house with a large PLC in the entertainment sector (Wembley PLC) before spending 12 years in private practice at both regional and City firms. I always had a passion for advising businesses and was keen to stay out of the courtroom so corporate law was my specialism of choice.
What did your time in private practice teach you?
I gained a really solid grounding of broad corporate law experience during this time. I advised a range of different businesses – founder-led, owner-managed, SMEs and global multinationals and was exposed to every industry and sector. So, it gave me excellent foundations and understanding of the wider business world.
Why did you choose to move in-house?
My work in private practice felt too transactional. A deal would complete then it was onto the next client. I didn’t get to see what happened next and I wanted to be more involved than that. I wanted to fully immerse myself within a business and embed myself within an industry.
During your time in-house, you’ve had a particular focus on the healthcare sector. Can you tell me why that is?
I come from a family of doctors but bucked the family trend and didn’t study medicine, instead choosing law. Yet I was keen to have law and medicine intersect in some way, so the healthcare sector was a natural home for me.
I have since spent over a decade advising across the healthcare sector as General Counsel within global pharmaceuticals (Roche), a niche Cambridge University spin-out pharmaceutical company (Cycle Pharmaceuticals) and digital health/ medical technology (Open Medical Group). The focus on research and development and innovation within the healthcare sector fascinates me alongside a motivation to drive the best possible outcomes for patients.
As you said, being based in-house allows you to be more involved. So, what is your approach towards advising clients as an in-house lawyer?
I am pragmatic and practical and never say “no”. My advice is always provided with a risk spectrum in mind, ranging from high to low risk. Sometimes, it is worth pursuing a high-risk approach, other times not.
I always remind my business colleagues to ask themselves three important questions before doing anything: “Why are we doing this?”, “What are we going to do?”, “How are we going to do this?” This Why-What-How framework is essential in reminding us all why something remains a priority and if not, what should take its place.
We’re delighted that you have joined TLD. Could you tell me how you relate to our strapline: “Accessible. Different. Human.”?
For me, this encapsulates so much of what every business wishes its advisers to be, especially its lawyers. The perception of lawyers is that we are pompous, verbose, remote and somewhat removed from reality. The truth is that in-house lawyers cannot be effective by being this way.
We need to be accessible and approachable to our business colleagues and we are able to do this because we are at the coal face, in the business and living the day-to-day reality of the business with our colleagues. This is what makes in-house lawyers different – we are part of the business. The human element flows from being approachable, finding common ground with our business colleagues and translating tricky legal concepts to them using plain English and a clear, unambiguous communication style.
An important side of the human element for me outside of my practice as a lawyer is inherent in the voluntary work I do to improve equality across the professions and the business world. I have successfully combined this external work with my various roles as a lawyer and have found the overall balance this gives me to be essential to the core of who I am.
Funke has perfectly captured the TLD way. If you’d like to find out more about how she can support your business in a part-time, flexible way, you can contact her on funke.abimbola@thelegaldirector.co.uk.
