Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
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14 www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse GC PROFILE WHEN LYNN KORBAK joined Toromont Industries as general counsel in 2018, the organization had just been through a significant growth phase — almost doubling its size through acquisitions of the Hewitt Group of companies — so the opportunities were tremendous. Joining Toromont shortly after its expan- sion presented Korbak with the opportunity to bring a legal lens to the integration of the new operations and the different cultures that were subsequently incorporated. She and her team were integral in assembling new practices for the entire organization, to accommodate the expanded business and aid the transformation. "It was the perfect fit for me to join Toromont at the cusp of its next stage and to be working with a company that had such great prospects for the future," says Korbak, who had a brief stint as general counsel at Toyota Canada prior to her current role. Through the deal, Toromont acquired Hewitt's 45 Caterpillar dealerships in Quebec, the Maritimes, Labrador West and Ontario, increasing the number of Toromont's heavy equipment dealerships to 120. The Concord, Ont.-based organization provides specialized capital equipment in Canada, the U.S. and internationally, operating in two segments — Finding opportunities amid business growth Lynn Korbak brings a legal lens to business expansions and transformations Equipment Group and CIMCO. No stranger to rapid expansions and transformations, Korbak oversaw a tremen- dous growth phase during her first in-house role at financial services giant Merrill Lynch, (previously Midland Walwyn) where she spent six years following the start of her career at various private practice firms. In 2003, she also went on to spend 13 years at Morneau Shepell as the company's first general counsel, chief risk officer and corporate secretary, when the human resources giant grew five-fold and transi- tioned to a public from a private company. "That was an amazing opportunity and a really fun challenge, experiencing years of fantastic growth and the transformation of a company," says Korbak of her time at Morneau Shepell. As corporate secretary to the board of directors at Morneau Shepell, she was responsible for providing corporate governance, legal and securities regulatory advice, leadership and education to the board and senior management, from the time of taking the company public and throughout five-fold revenue growth, during a period of significant corporate governance change. As general counsel and corporate secretary at Toromont, Korbak is responsible for all legal matters and board governance at the public company as well as managing the risk portfolio, litigation management and insurance contracts. As Toromont operates throughout eastern Canada, the legal team also manages jurisdictional issues. "I focus on proactively anticipating and responding to issues and ensuring that our legal risk is well in hand to enable business "Any crisis that we encounter — but particularly this pandemic — tests our perceptions of what's most important and takes us back to our disciplines and our core functions that make a company successful."