As recently as 10 years ago, it wasn’t a likely scenario to have the general counsel sitting at the same table as the CEO and the company’s C-level executives; if the GC did have a seat at the table, their presence was considered transitory. In the wake of the economic recession and an increasingly challenging compliance landscape, GCs are now critical members of the senior executive team.
Within that inner sanctum, one relationship in particular has developed into a critical force for businesses—that of the GC and the chief financial officer (CFO). How genially this duo works together can make or break a company’s success. As an organization’s senior legal adviser and the ranking decision maker on finances respectively, the GC and CFO need to be a dynamic team that not only mitigates risk, but does so in a way that allows businesses, such as Xerox Corporation, to thrive in this era of heightened accountability and stakeholder expectations.
