My legal life: Helen Lamprell OBE, AVEVA

I like understanding the rules of the game. And I liked LA Law as a teenager! It is hard when you are making decisions on careers early on as you have no idea what it is really like to do certain jobs. I always wanted to get videos of the various jobs people do that schoolchildren have never heard of and put them out on social media to provide better careers advice. And my job is nothing like LA Law, for the record.

I had a very traditional path – law at university, then Linklaters. In truth, I followed friends from university without putting much thought into it. In fairness to me, it was much harder then to get information about law firms, so using friends from the years above as proxies was not such a bad idea.

I spent a long time at Vodafone. First in a traditional legal role doing lots of treasury and M&A work, including huge deals in India and the US. And then latterly in a much more operational role, spanning everything from comms to security to government affairs to regulatory – and never forgetting the legal part. I loved both of those roles and gained so much from them. The first taught me about big deals and international risk management and gave me the opportunity to work with legendary people. The second part actually taught me about my industry, the inherent risks and opportunities. It taught me how to be a leader and not a subject matter expert, and about the great joy of making companies function well. It also taught me how to wear many hats on the same day.

'The Women’s Business Council was formed to provide practical advice to government from business. Its work has taken different forms, from advising on gender pay gap reporting, to encouraging women back into the workforce after career breaks'

I have been at AVEVA for under a year, so it is rather premature to talk about achieving anything. But I think I have brought with me some useful experience of integration and forming teams that is essential as we continue to grow fast. I love learning about a new industry and what our products do. Whether it is at the design or optimise stage, the capacity of industrial software to make business more efficient and sustainable is really impressive. Customer visits are definitely the best way to understand your business.

I sit on the Women’s Business Council. The council was formed to provide practical advice to government from business to try to maximise women’s contribution to economic growth. Over the years, its work has taken different forms, from advising on gender pay gap reporting, to encouraging women back into the workforce after career breaks and some groundbreaking work on the menopause and its impact on women. What I see repeatedly is that many businesses are very welcoming of positive change and initiate it. The council provided numerous examples of businesses as diverse as Barclays and Willmott Dixon doing just that. One of the most striking recent pieces of work has been by Jane Portas about the choices women make that impact their financial wellbeing – read her work on 6 Moments that Matter.

I was amazed by how many people reached out when they heard about my OBE. It was wonderful. I found it quite surprising in a lovely way because advocating for positive ideas does not feel that big an ask. But the reality is that for many people there is either not enough time or they do not want to stick their head above the parapet. But the view from the parapet is rather nice, I found. I still do not actually have my OBE – it was one of the Covid casualties. The palace had to restrict the number of guests because of the pandemic. But happily we will all be able to go to Windsor Castle very soon.

If the GC is the lone voice advocating positive change, you may be in the wrong company. But as the GC you are often at the centre of many threads, whether that is working with the people, product or the supply chain teams. And sometimes calling out the wider societal issues is all the encouragement other people need to ramp up their efforts and prioritise things they already care about. This allows the company to really live its values.