Suraj Singh believes that digitization not only makes legal work standardized but also that technology is fundamentally ‘democratic’. With this, Suraj has advocated the cause of strengthening technology in all areas of legal functioning. He has also taken various initiatives to digitize and automate the legal processes in most of the companies he worked for. With a gamut of knowledge and experience for more than 20 years, he began his journey as a litigation lawyer and worked for a reputed law firm, Fox Mandal before choosing ‘in-house’ roles. Having led a series of senior in-house legal roles across some of the well-known multi-nationals and Indian corporates like ‘Novartis, Wells Fargo, Sandoz, Mylan/Viatris, Suraj’s present role as a Legal Head is advising on strategic legal solutions to the senior management of the Global Drug Development and Sandoz Development Centers in India. Prior to that, he was the ‘Vice President and Head Legal’ with Wells Fargo and headed legal teams in two different countries.
Suraj has a wealth of expertise in building impressive and motivated teams in India and Philippines. Suraj’s noteworthy contribution ranges brilliantly for handling one of the high profile ‘product recall’ episode successfully. His faith in the judicial system in India and his strict devotion to compliance in addressing this episode were widely applauded and awarded with one of the global awards in his company.
Suraj lives by the philosophy that there are ‘no free lunches’ in life, and one has to work hard to achieve anything. Having completed his Master’s degree from JNU, a university known for its world-renowned academics, he still follows the values imparted at the University which advocated democratic functioning of the world, country, a corporate or a team.
Suraj has also been listed as one of India's Finest In-House Counsels by the Indian Corporate Counsel Association (ICCA) in 2016. A speaker at various national & international conferences and legal summits like ‘IT Legal Summit 2017, Grand Masters 2015 and so on, Suraj has also penned an article on the ‘adoption of technology’ which has been published in an international journal, APAC CIO Outlook Magazine.
A Corporate Counsel is a business partner and an integral part of the management of the Company rather than a lawyer who merely highlights legal risks.
Famed as a peoples' manager, Suraj's long and esteemed career has taught him that the greatest challenge GCs face is in making the top management understand the need to install a strong ethics and compliance systems, along with the need to have an adequate budget for it.
