Cipla has appointed former Khaitan & Co senior partner Murali Neelakantan as its global general counsel. This is the first time the company has filled this role.
The opportunity to join Cipla came about during one of many meetings Neelakantan had with the company’s leadership team when Khaitan & Co was advising Cipla. “I never considered moving in-house but it seemed like a good challenge,” said Neelakantan.
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Neelankantan began his career with Nishith Desai & Associates before moving on to work with Simmons & Simmons, Arnold & Porter, Ashurst and finally Khaitan & Co. He has worked on matters such as Bahrain Telecom’s acquisition of a 49% shareholding in S Tel; the joint venture between Novavax and Cadila for the development and production of flu vaccines; and TTK’s shareholder disputes with Reckitt Benckiser.
In India, it is unusual for a senior partner from a law firm to venture in-house. Neelakantan told India Business Law Journal he welcomed the challenge. “I could have been a senior partner at a law firm for at least another 10-15 years anywhere in the world,” he said. “It’s not going to change much and as you get older you reach a plateau. You make more money and you have more people who are nice to you because you’re older than them and that’s basically it. Where’s the challenge in that?”
Cipla has a chief legal officer who handles the company’s legal function, coordinating its law resources in the US, South Africa, Europe and India. The company has over 20 legal professionals in its team. In addition to offering legal expertise, Neelakantan hopes to share his knowledge of leadership in professional services organizations with the team, guiding it on developing new skill sets, organizational structures and building centres of excellence within the company. He also intends to work with private practice lawyers, encouraging training and an understanding of the business to benefit both Cipla and its external legal advisers.
But his plans don’t stop there. “The conversation that we haven’t had in India is about general counsel becoming CEOs, becoming true leaders of a business. If a sales person can become a CEO, and a finance person can, then why can’t a lawyer? That would be path-breaking.” He adds that there are plenty of examples of lawyers moving on to leadership roles in business overseas and firmly believes this is possible in India.
“For me, that’s the challenge,” said Neelakantan. “I can be a great general counsel for five to 10 years. Then I could move to become a general counsel in a bigger company. That doesn’t change anything. If I can become the first CEO of a company having been a general counsel, that will set the trend. Otherwise you can remain a general counsel and you just move sideways. It’s about how to move up.”
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