Rajeev Chopra, currently in his 27th year of his career has been a litigation lawyer, worked in law firms and has been a General Counsel for reputed Indian and Multinational Corporations. His rich blend of experience in various roles, adds various perspectives in evaluating legal matters.

He started his career with private practice in the Delhi High Court, before moving to law firms in corporate commercial practice. He has been the General Counsel and led legal teams in LG, Airtel and Dell, before joining Accenture in 2007.

As Managing Director – Legal, Rajeev holds ultimate responsibility for legal support to Accenture Global Delivery Centers whilst also being head of legal for India, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Rajeev steers a team of 17 legal professionals in India and is further supported by a team of 22 legal professionals from Global Legal Network. A key feature of his successful in-house career, which began in 2003, has been considering the sensitivity of business realities while rendering legal support and strategizing risk mitigation for the long term sustained growth and business development of his employers. This strong business mind-set combined with his technical legal expertise and collaborative outlook has ensured that remains one of India’s most respected in-house counsel which is evident with the number of accolades he has received in his highly distinguished and decorated career. This has truly reflected in his management style also contributed to his ability to develop robust legal teams who have significant input on business affairs at Accenture. In this regard, Chopra had the following to say: ‘I believe that the involvement and contribution of every legal team member in the work of other departments within the organisation encourages not only professional learning and career development, but also fosters a sense of empowerment and inclusion. This has helped strengthen our support to the local business areas and our stakeholders through a strong, robust, strategic and well collaborated approach to providing solutions and to ensure that the business receives the best of legal every day’. He further believes that fostering a culture of respect, fairness and ethical conduct is critical to our business and our people, especially because we operate in countries around the world where laws may differ but where we require the same ethical conduct.

Rajeev has earned trust and respect from his internal clients, by consistently delivering strategic support to business and operations. Rajeev has set a high standard of ethical behavior for the team, organization and in the marketplace, and expect to continue to drive ethical behavior. He has further front-ended initiatives for Accenture handling transformational, unique and complex projects aiming organizational changes involving mergers of internal entities. Rajeev was also instrumental in bringing in automation by developing an “in house Compliance Tracking Tool”, creation of a “Legal Repository Tool”, Non Standard Software Reviews, Conceptualizing usage of BoT’s etc.

He sums up by saying – It’s very clear that General Counsels are now expected to run their legal function like a business. As the lead India counsel, laser eye focus is needed to create and nurture a team blending cross-domain expertise and experience cutting across various facets of law that clinically addresses the requirements of the Organization. He further advises and encourages his team to be “business advisors” and remain relevant without merely limiting themselves to “legal advisors”. This has helped his team members to transform their legal acumen to business judgment which not only contributes to the overall efficiency of the organization but also for the professional growth of every individual team member.