Law week is an annual event that promotes public understanding of the law and its role in society. In 2018, ACC Australia will celebrate law week by profiling a selection of our members and their contribution to society and the broader legal profession.
Today, we profile, Rachel Launders, General Counsel & Company Secretary, Nine Entertainment Co.
Rachel Launders, General Counsel & Company Secretary, Nine Entertainment Co.
"There’s simply no such thing as a typical day."
What do the safe extraction of four staff members from a Beirut prison and the formulation of a historic broadcast agreement with Tennis Australia have in common?
Not much of course, other than the fact that in just over three years as General Counsel & Company Secretary at Nine Entertainment Co, Rachel Launders has been intimately involved in both outcomes. The first occurred following the detainment of four 60 Minutes crew members in April 2016. The second was much more recent and involved Nine Entertainment’s seemingly unexpected acquisition of the Tennis Australia broadcast rights from the summer of 2020. The two vastly different scenarios capture perfectly what drove Rachel to an in-house role and how the in-house sector provides the deep engagement and connection to the broader business that she enjoys.
As General Counsel and Company Secretary at Nine Entertainment Co, Rachel’s responsibilities are diverse. Preparation and participation in board meetings are a constant requirement, as is the challenge of guiding a ten-person legal team. That and maintaining the required nimbleness to effectively work across deals involving the strategy, broadcast operations, content, sports, human resources and finance teams requires lots of light footwork. Not to mention of course what Rachel refers to as the regular randomness of questions that inevitably arise from within a business that operates across free-to-air television, digital publishing, video-on-demand and content production and holds investments across a myriad of other companies.
Interestingly when reflecting on her previous career in private practice, a career that included sixteen years with Gilbert + Tobin, Rachel is quick to acknowledge that though she misses the extensive resources of private practice, she loves the connection and involvement she feels with the Nine business. Being in-house means you need to understand the ‘why’ of a particular issue, as opposed to just the where and what. “We talk about ‘why’ we’d be interested in doing something and you know what the business is doing because you’ve got people around you who are passionate about the business. You have much better buy-in with that context.”
In highlighting her role of engaging with the wider business, Rachel turns to the recent developments with Tennis Australia as an example of being part of the business to drive positive outcomes. “It really was a great example of the business working well together. The sport, programming and strategy teams at Nine had been thinking about tennis for some time and the legal team was a part of that from early on. If the rights were to become available, how might we utilise them and how might we secure them?”
Remarkably following the release of the process documents by Tennis Australia in mid-March of this year, the agreement was signed and announced just two weeks later. “The opportunity to be involved in something that was so noteworthy for the company, that will transform what we offer to the public was so exciting”, she recalls.
Away from Nine Entertainment, Rachel is proud of her continuing directorship with Giant Steps. Giant Steps operates two education centres for people with autism across Sydney and Melbourne and caters for pre-school age children through to adults. She also finds time to serve as Director for Gateway Lifestyle Group, a listed company that develops affordable housing for older Australians and operates fifty-six sites along the East Coast of Australia and into South Australia.
