Navigating Cross-Border Mining Deals, Emerging Markets, and Intercultural Communication with Rumyana Davidson

Welcome to Studying Law Around the World. I'm Claudio Claus. In each episode, I talk with lawyers, law students, and professors from different parts of the world to talk about legal education, careers, and what the profession looks like in real life. We talk about the hard parts, the surprises, and the decisions that shaped their paths. Whether you're planning to study abroad, thinking about working in another legal system, or just curious about how law works around the world, this podcast is for you. Today I'll be interviewing Rumiana Davidson. She is a former chief legal officer with over 15 years of experience in a global C-Suite level. And now she consults and helps companies in the mining and energy sectors, technology innovation, and many others. It's I'm very, very excited to chat with her and learn a little more about her experience. Thank you so much for being in the podcast today, Rumi. Thank you very much as well for organizing this awesome initiative. I appreciate it and she started conversation. I'd love for you to introduce yourself and share a little bit about your background and what your day-to-day looks like as a founder of Rokudan Strategic Solutions. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I have legal beg around, so they call it now here our internationally qualified lawyer. Of course, when I came, I couldn't practice law, so I had to step down from the purely legal profession and became an advisor. So people started asking me this and that. And overtime I realized if I do this, advise companies on the strategy and business development or market entry and so on, why not just opening my own company and my own advisory practice. So it kind of naturally, naturally went there. I realized also over time that this business development, connecting people and so on, communicating, this is something I have been doing as a lawyer as well. This is what we lawyers do a lot. So for example, they would just use the fact that I speak multiple languages and take me to many negotiations where lawyers usually don't go. Often I would even not really disclose myself as alarm watch. I would be just part of the negotiation team because often when you have a lawyer, the table, you get that scared or where is my lawyer? Why didn't take mine? So people get a bit defensive. So sometimes taking it off the lower head helps you communicating with people in business and so on and so forth. So basically I've been doing this already and it just naturally flew through advisory. Now at least what I do is I, I, I know many people and I listen to what their needs are mainly in the mining area nowadays, less in oil. And when I identify some connecting dots between let's say two companies, 2 projects to people and so on, I just make the things work, build the partnership together. And I specialize in specializing building international partnerships between Canadian companies or EU on one hand and emerging markets on the other. Testing and you've worked across then like mining, energy, large infrastructure projects in different parts of the world and and you're just explaining how you connect now these companies, you Canadian companies. So I'm curious of what first drew you into working into this complex and emerging markets? In fact, I first lived in Libya. I worked in a railway construction project there, so I had already learned some Arabic before, but I started using it a bit more. This knowledge of Arabic, Spanish and other languages probably made made me stand out from the crowd of regular lawyers. And I was invited to work in an oil company which was building their mining division. So I was learning on the go. I had never worked oil or mining before, but what was more needed was those transferable skill rather than specific industry knowledge at the time. But mining and oil, especially mining is a place which makes to travel to very interesting places. Because mining is developed as it is in Canada. It is also, well, it's, it's all over the world and it's usually quite exciting places in remote locations. Even in Canada, it's far in the north, for example. It can be any, any place in Africa. It can be in the Middle East, in Asia, in Latin America, anywhere. And it's, it's exciting. Part of the interesting part about this job is that you get to travel to to interesting places. A lot. Very cool, very cool. And from what I understand, a big part of your work sits on this intersection of law, strategy, culture. So I'm, I'm curious, you know what the company's most often underestimate when they're trying to enter a new market from your experience? The one thing that people underestimate generally, not only companies but many people, is communication. So people believe that it is only a language problem and yet, and yet then you hire an interpreter if you don't speak the language or you just use English as an international language and it just makes your communication easier. But often communication is not about knowing a language or even knowing that technology. It's about understanding the cultural context and the different patterns that people in different parts of the world have. It's different expectation of time. It's different expectation of goals. It's different the expectation of even of a culture in, in the Middle East, in, in, in many Muslim countries, contracts are called man-made paper. So they're not taking as serious is some oral agreement that might be behind the scene or around the, the contract itself. So people from the Western Hemisphere, when they sign a contract with them, they expect that the the letter of the contract will be followed. But the other party does not really see things this way. They see it as just, that was the agreement at the time. Yes, we put it on paper, but it's a man made paper. So it doesn't have to stay there forever. It's a it's a fluid and interpretable and so on and so forth. Differences in communication before partnership is made, before the deal is done, after the deal is closed or it's a conflict stage are are very important and often underestimate but. Very interesting point. Now I think that makes a lot of sense. The the intercultural communication pieces is one that really needs you. People involved need to be aware, and I'm curious to, you know, being involved in these transactions and projects in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, all around really is there, you know, one lesson from cross-border work that has stayed with you overtime. Yes, one lesson, try to listen to people and hear them out first, because before you speak you're like about your goals and your because shooting your your elevator pitch tried to listen a little bit about what they're looking for. Maybe customize your real message. I love that like Chardon Suite, that's it. Listen, really, really fun. Being this deeply involved in the mining sector. How do you see, you know, the the role of lawyers and advisers evolving in this space? The law of lawyers in more regulated jurisdictions such as Canada and less regulated jurisdictions such as let's say Africa or Middle East or or the post Soviet Union, the space, the rules are different, the expectations are different and limitations are different. So let's say in the post Soviet countries, the lawyer is flexible in you're a lawyer and they expect you, you know, all the laws in, in the entire world and you have to be able to like Orient yourself whenever you go, you just read the contract, read the law and you have to understand how it works. While here you are limited by jurisdiction, you're limited by a lot of ethics of standards and so on. Your this, the, the unauthorized practice rules and so on and so forth. So the lawyers in some places are less regulated, which means they're more commonly used in transactions where they're not necessarily qualified to do by law. But when you understand the general principles of how things works, it comes to about the same. So the world is divided into two, three legal systems. And once you know how how it works, you you know what to expect. So even if you need a local lawyer for something, you just point him and you say I need this. And they tell you, no, we don't have it. And I say, no, I, I know that you do find it. But what how is this not try to find it there, somewhere there. And then if they come back to me, how did you know? Like that's what I do. I know. So yeah, that's how it works sometimes. I love that. It really is interesting. Sometimes we'll also hear people trying to compare, you know, civil law and common law and how different they are at the same time. More and more I just see that there's like really a big convergence, especially in commercial law, where basically most of the business world speaks the same language. And, you know, basically everything kind of flows either, you know, with, with kind of New York as a, as a place or London. And then basically off of that kind of the whole world of, of bigger transactions go. And it's been interesting to see. But I also wanted to ask, you know, when you think about mining, when you think about this career is I, I can imagine that it's a very much male dominated stem oriented sector. So why don't you ask? You know, I saw you were an executive with the executive committee of women in mining in Montreal. What has surprised you the most about being a woman and a lawyer in this industry? Well, in fact, the first thing that surprised me was that there was a woman in mining as a group, as organization. I didn't know about this. Not many people here in Canada also don't know even within the industry. I was presenting our organization at the board of Big Mining Association and the questions I got after this board were were were were very surprising. I heard people say that we didn't know you guys exist before. For US, women were the wives of the mining people who would organize dinners or events and so on and so forth. And they didn't really see that we we can have a presence in the industry. In fact, now in Canada about 80% and and worldwide about 80% of the industry is dominated by men, which is natural. It is normal in a way, but we exist, we make the change and we, we bring a different perspective to projects the boards in the mind. And this is interesting, empowering, sometimes difficult because sometimes you face a situation like is there a toilet for girls or no and stuff like this. And some places it is not really made so. But I was recently in Saudi Arabia at the rest of my forum and I met a lot of women there that are building their women in mining chapters and their women in mining associations. Also went to Oman after I saw women in the mine engineers and so on working. And I asked them how it was. And all of them said, you know, they, they look at you weirdly at the beginning, but once they see that you're good at what you're doing, that's all that matters. And you just do your job and they just appreciate it and that's it. Amazing. Well, I saw you were recently in, in a big conference as well and it's been very interesting follow a little bit of your career since we, we kind of got to share the classroom. I'd, I'd love to, you know, maybe before our final question to hear a little bit more about these opportunities. Do you see them mostly as, you know, networking opportunity? Do you usually already have, you know, a few specific people that you're looking into speaking in these events? How does that approach comes in the way of like a strategy and business development for you? Well. In my corporate career, I didn't really have a necessity to go to conferences and I would go often just for fun or just for the, for the, for, for hanging out a little bit. I was not proactive there and I, I had all the consultants running around me and trying to sell me services and so on. And this was a little bit, even even a little bit annoying at the time. Now that I'm at the other side of the, of the, of the, the other group, let's say I find the conference is extremely enriching and interesting. I don't go much to listen to channels and so on. I just select a few of them when I really need to hear the speaker or connect with the speaker or want to hear something that I know it's going to be new or, or, and I use it for B2B meetings during the day a lot as well, which are organized in advance or just on the spot. Someone calls you like can you come, we need to talk and so on and so forth. Because people, especially in the mining know each other in a way all over the world. It's a small world and we kind of meet people we know every time we go somewhere. But another important part of this conferences is the parties in the evening, which are happening. Different companies organized the conference itself, organized some of them, and people are a little bit less tents in the evening event to a bit more relaxed and a bit more open to speak. So all these, the official part, the panels, the one-on-one meetings and the social events in the evening help you network, broaden your perspective, learn the gossip, learn the new things. Sometimes they're behind the scene. They don't talk about this at the panels because it's not something you want to talk about openly and be recorded and so on and so forth. So it is absolutely necessary to attend some of them, maybe not all you select at some point you realize which ones should better your goals. And, and, and it's a it's, it's indispensable, I would say, because that's the personal human contact you have. You cannot have it over Zoom. That's why I don't rarely attend online conferences or something with. It just doesn't bring that the same value. Absolutely. No, that makes a lot of sense. I appreciate you sharing that to to wrap up today's episode, I wanted to ask you, oh, thinking about young lawyers who are interested in working it in, in the international sectors of law, mining, advisory roles. What Maybe it's a piece of advice that you would give to Dan to help and plan the next steps, or maybe even an advice that you wish you would have received as a young lawyer starting out well. One of the things that we talk a lot about in the mining industry is the gap between people who are going to retire and majority of people reminding people all over the world and specifically in Canada are going to retire in the coming 10 years and there are not enough young people to replace them. And this is valid for for this industry. Even lawyers that are specified in this years the industry are not as many as there are many, let's say, immigration lawyers or family lawyers or criminal lawyers and so on and so forth. In our cohort. I sometimes ask people like, guys, do you want me to share mining events and so on. And there are very few people that are actually interested. And I met many people that actually that that that live here in Canada, which is one of the biggest smiling players in the world. 40% of the listed companies are listed in Toronto in the mining sector, 40% in the world. And there's so many people who don't know anything about mining or often I get the question. You mean crypto mining? So now that I say I work in mining, I have to say in the traditional meaning the words. So, yeah, there's so many people who are not aware that this exists or there is even another side of the problem, that many young people have a very negative opinion about the industry. Is something polluting? Is something bad. Sometimes they teach them it's cool. My kids came from school and someone told him about that mom on my name is bad. Why? Why do you do this? And I'm like, what do you mean? Why is it bad? So someone tells them these things or they hear them from someone or it's the informational space they're they're they grow up in. I can tell you for sure mining is not as bad as they say. It's in fact one of the most important parts of the transition in energy efficiency and and green agenda. Whatever doesn't grow, it is mine. So it's either grown or mined. And all those technologies that we use, including a they all need metals and sources of other. So mining is not bad. Mining is absolutely this sensible, very interesting and it's exciting working in this industry. Very, very nice. So so let's imagine here, I just graduated law school. I'm starting my first job and I once you're getting to mining, but I'm just in a traditional law office. What is just a simple thing that I could start doing you. You said attending events would be maybe one of the the good ideas. I'm not sure if we say PD, AC or PDAC for. Some people call it PDC, Some people called. In Toronto, right? And, and what are some other things you would recommend for for women joining the Women's Association in mining? Women in mining is a is a great start for both women and men because also men are welcome as the events, their regular events. There is a local chapter in many cities. So it's not something there is also the national women in mine in Canada, but the events happen in local chapters usually. So there is a Toronto one, there is a Montreal one where I am and now and now there is the Sudbury and so on and so forth. So also there are CIM Cents, Canadian Institute of Mining and many more. So once you, once you go to one Tree events, I can tell you the first time I attended PDAC, it was because I was invited at Dolores Park party. In fact, we were their clients. So they invited us and, and I took the day pass just to see what's going on. And I was a little bit like I was, even though I had been working in the mining industry, I was not founded. I was like, it was my first and I, I felt a little bit like weird. And it's huge. I think you, you volunteered last year, you, you saw it's 330 thousand people participate. It's something like grandiose. And then I went to the first woman in mining event and then I didn't know anyone and I was staying in the corner and didn't know how to talk to people, what to talk about. Everything was so new. Now I'm part of the gang. Now wherever I go, I meet people I know and and and this amount of people that I know grows with every event. It's usually quality people. It's it's interesting people. It's it's important to start start understanding how things work, which parties are worth it, which parties are maybe not less interesting for you at this moment, which events, which panels, which launches which there are things happening almost every week or every every month for sure. In in in most cities is for in Toronto for sure. So you just go to one talk to people and they tell you all want to this event. Do you want to join go and it's not so expensive. Of course, the big conferences can be quite fence is expensive, but those smaller events that they're like 25 to $60.00, which is I guess absolutely doable. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share a little bit about your story and and this insights with our listeners today. Really, really, really appreciate it. Thank you very much. It was very nice talking to you.