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Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/1238940
www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse 35 EMERGE PROMOTES LEADERSHIP AT SYMCOR Symcor's legal team leader, Elisabeth Demone, established the EMERGE forum together with a few colleagues in 2018 and it has been growing ever since. The forum aims to empower, motivate, encourage, recognize, grow and educate employees on their leadership journey, by providing research, networking opportuni- ties and focus group discussions. Mem- bers are encouraged to discuss ideas to promote leadership. "We've created a space for employees to discuss big issues like unconscious bias and to learn from each other," says Demone. "Leaders can be in any level of the organization so leadership traits are important for everyone to learn." "At Symcor, we are always working to accelerate the digital transformation of our clients so the entire industry can shift." 20 years," she says. "We're not just here to advise on major issues. We actively par- ticipate in strategies from the get-go so, hopefully, we can prevent major issues from happening. Our advice is given faster and more efficiently because we're being pulled in many different directions." Demone and her team regularly purge paper and try to digitize documents as much as possible. The team has also adopted a "process mapping" strategy to ensure that only the necessary steps are being taken to account for risk, so the process can be streamlined. "My goal is to continue to modernize my department and be as helpful as we can be to help the company succeed," says Demone. "When Symcor is growing, legal is there every step of the way." from a contractual and regulatory perspec- tive," says Demone. Demone's team is also involved in several merger and acquisition opportunities every year, as the company seeks to acquire busi- nesses that will supplement its current service offering and help Symcor to further expand. Demone has been with Symcor for nine years, initially as counsel and then as senior counsel. Since being promoted to her cur- rent role in November 2018, she has been working hard to reshape the legal team and its role in the organization. As part of her strategy to modernize the legal department and create efficiencies, Demone has trained her team to give pointed advice to colleagues in no more than two lines, rather than send- ing lengthy emails. "Legal services has developed in the last Elisabeth Demone, vice president, chief legal officer and secretary