As OYO`s Senior Legal Counsel for India and Southeast Asia and a member of OYO`s management team, Patil managed regulatory, contractual and legal compliance and dispute resolution for the company in the region. Could you explain the qualities that have helped you in your career as an in-house lawyer with a wealth of experience in global legal systems? As Wipro`s general counsel, Patil will lead the legal and compliance, global data privacy and government affairs functions, the company said in a statement. In June, Wipro also appointed Asmita Sawant, Head of Transactions and Intellectual Property at Tata Technologies, as Director of the Legal Department. With U.S. and Indian legal experience in commercial transactions and intellectual property laws, Sawant specializes in corporate law, commercial transactions and contracts, and compliance practice areas. Wipro has appointed Tejal Patil, who has nearly three decades of Asia-Pacific legal, governance and compliance experience, as General Counsel. In most parts of Europe, it is also civil law, and there is a common law system which, as we all know, is also applicable in India and the United Kingdom in most other countries. So this task gave me a very good foundation to work in very different legal systems that work around the world. And that`s the risk I took at the time and I said, yes, I`m willing to accept the job, it`s a difficult task for me. Not only did I really enjoy this task, but I also managed it. And I did that job very well, and then the company took me back to Singapore.
This time, Singapore was a much larger region, including China, Japan, Korea, etc. What I have tried to say is that you have to take calculated risks. If you need to understand how you want to grow in the organization, it is very important that you take these risks, number one. Second, it is very easy for us as lawyers to say that it will work, that it will not work and to try to be a kind of gatekeeper and say that this law does not allow you to do that. Deepak, could you tell us a little bit about your illustrious legal journey? A time came when I moved from India to Singapore, which was our regional headquarters, and worked there for three years in the so-called AI region for Procter and Gamble. AI stands for ASEAN Australia and India, and I worked there for three years as a regional advisor and returned to India. Then, as Advocate General for India, Ashok took care of India, moved to Singapore at the time, and I moved to India to take up the position of Advocate General and worked in India for four years. Then I moved from there to Geneva, Switzerland. Also with Procter and Gamble, I started working on a region called CEMEA, which is an acronym that stands for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. Huge region with about 90 countries. I was Senior General Counsel and I ran this region, which was kind of a mini-world because there were all the legal systems you can imagine, in the world, and I worked successfully there for four years, and then I went back to Singapore, but this time to Singapore, I took on a much bigger assignment or a bigger role.
including Japan. Korea, China and ASEAN were of course part of my role. Exactly three years ago, in February 2018. I had the opportunity to leave Procter and Gamble and take a current job, WIPRO. It was an opportunity that was seized as Global General Counsel. My team consists of 130 to 140 lawyers. I started in February 2018 and the company quickly gave me additional responsibilities for global government relations. Then I started dealing with global legal government relations.
As Global Head of Legal Functions, Deepak ensures compliance with ethical and regulatory requirements in all regions and maintains the company`s tradition of doing business in a transparent and accountable manner. He has over 20 years of global legal experience and is able to manage complex, cross-functional tasks to drive the adoption of corporate governance best practices without compromising corporate social responsibility. In her role as General Counsel, Patil will lead legal and compliance matters, global data privacy and government affairs. She will also be a member of Wipro`s Board of Directors. There were three basic bases that I want to share with you today, if you look at the goal, first set a goal that you want to achieve, and then work towards that goal in a very systematic way. What worked for me were these three milestones, I would say another, which are very critical. First of all, it was about understanding the company, very early on I also decided that I might be one of the few general counsel who had never worked for a law firm. I have now started 29 years in a legal department in a company and I have always been in the company I have always worked for. I`ve never been in a law firm before, just around the two companies I mentioned.
But it was a conscious decision I had made. One of the first things I wanted to understand was how business people think and how business people work. I think Sameer also explained very well in his presentation how to ensure that we stay in every corner of the act while achieving commercial objectives. And that`s something that helped me a lot to understand, A) how business things, how companies would make their profits, where we make profits, where do we make losses, where do we invest, what is the risk appetite of the company, how are we, as an organization, willing to take certain business risks when I say risks. I refer to business risks, and to understand that it is very important for me to understand the values of the company. The only reason I switched from Procter and Gamble to Wipro was because Wipro`s values were very similar to mine, or my values were very similar to the values I saw in Wipro. So I chose WIPRO. If your personal values don`t align with your organization`s values, it`s very difficult for you to progress in that organization. So it`s a very basic thing that everyone needs to think about, I`ve certainly done it for myself. So as a businessman, where we make money, where we lose money, where we invest, what are the risks that an organization is willing to take and where it should not take risks is very critical. Let me share some examples on this topic with you and how I have used risk-taking in my personal career. I told you earlier that I moved from India to Singapore.
This task was a regional task and was done to prepare me to come back and take India, geography, again, but after successfully completing the geography of India or the land of India as a marketplace for Procter and Gamble, there were a few options ahead of me, but then in Procter and Gamble. And one of the options was to work in the United States, which is our global headquarters, and to do work in the United States. The other option I was given was to look at the regional role at one of our regional headquarters. I took a risk. At that point, as I said, visiting headquarters will give me only a very limited understanding of U.S. and U.S. laws, which I knew very well as an American company.