Canadian Lawyer InHouse

SEPTEMBER 2016 18 INHOUSE By Jennifer Brown I n the last fi ve years, the business of big construc- tion has changed dramati- cally and the level of risk has spiked. It wasn't so long ago that 10 per cent of projects under- taken by Aecon Group Inc. were valued at less than $150 million — today, more than half are valued at more than $150 million. "They are bigger, more complex and take longer to complete," says Brian Swartz, ex- ecutive vice president, legal & commercial services with Aecon Group Inc. "The teams work a lot more diligently in putting togeth- er the bid proposals in order to be prepared for such complex projects." Aecon Group Inc. is engaged in large, often multi-billion-dollar construction projects across Canada. The more complex the project, the higher the risk profi le — projects covering tens or hundreds of kilo- Aecon scales new heights in risk management Legal department overhauls how risk management is handled with creation of Project Excelsior. L to R – Yonni Fushman, deputy general counsel and Brian Swartz, executive vice president, legal & commercial, Aecon Group Inc. By Jennifer Brown I t has been just three years since we fi rst launched the Innovatio Awards but, in that short time, we have seen an impressive increase in sophistication of nominations from some top legal departments from across the country — both large and small. In fact, it is often some of the smaller departments tackling projects that net big results and top marks from our judges. If this is your fi rst introduction to the Canadian Lawyer InHouse Innovatio Awards, it is a program designed to showcase the innovative work of Canadian legal departments and their legal service providers in Canada. Over the past few months, I have, together with our stellar team of in- house judges, had the pleasure of reviewing the nominations from a range of in-house departments including big public companies, various levels of gov- ernment from municipal, provincial to federal and non-profi t organizations. This year, we added the category of Law Department Leadership to recognize senior leaders who foster innovation in their departments. In the following pages you will read about the inspiration people like Monique Mercier, chief legal offi cer of Telus, and Tony Linardi, general counsel of Golder Associates bring to the people they work with. Linardi, nominated by Nicole Clark, senior legal counsel at Golder, spoke highly of Linardi's approach to leadership and innovation for the business — fostering a culture that makes his legal team want to stay and grow with the organization. The overall winner this year from all categories was the legal team at Aecon Group Inc., which impressed the judges the most above all the other winners in the fi nal round of review and was selected to receive the In- novation of the Year award for the rollout of Project Excelsior. Excelsior is a multi-pronged initiative to bring excellence in risk management to every level of Aecon. A series of programs was created to change the risk manage- ment standard of the organization: a commercial risk committee (to review signifi cant risks and provide guidance); training of project execution per- sonnel; collecting lessons learned across projects; a risk evaluation commit- tee (to monitor projects during execution); enterprise risk management to identify risks, generate a heat map and assign risk weightings; risk commit- tee of board of directors; and to ultimately develop a compliance function. As judge Lorne O'Reilly of Dow Chemical noted in assessing this fi nal award: "My determination on Innovation of the Year is based on how com- prehensive a change was made by the legal department, and how innovative the outcome was in comparison to their previous practice and other orga- nizations. I believe that to be innovative you have to be a game changer; disruption of present practice is a base requirement and the ultimate goal is greater value for the organization. It is always more than someone saying that something is innovative." Lorne really nailed it when he said: "Disruption of present practice is a base requirement." Many of the nominations we received this year went to that next level of creating greater value, even fi nding new business for the organization or facilitating cost savings and effi ciencies. I hope you enjoy reading about the winners in the following pages. Change is possible and can be rewarding in so many ways. IH Disruption greater value in the name of

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