Restless Curiosity: Navigating the C-Suite and Forced Change with Bindu Cudjoe

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 have the opportunity to interview Bindu Kuju. She has an incredible career. She brings over 25 years of experience across legal compliance and governance and operations. She's been a chief legal officer, general counsel and many other very, very interesting and distinct things in her career. She holds a B come from the University of Calgary and LB from the University of Toronto and has many, many incredible things to share with us today. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today been. Thank you, Claudia. I'm super excited to join you today. Thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate it. And to start over conversation, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to your guests and tell us a little bit about who you are and you know what you do these days. Absolutely. Well, let me start with the most important things. I'm a mom. I've got 3 kids who are young adults as they frequently tell me. I'm a wife, I'm a a daughter and I also happen to be a lawyer who has worked in law firms, banks, and now I run my own consultancy. And I guess what drives me and the common thread through all of that is I love to help people, so and I've been able to do it through a really rewarding career in law so far. Very, very fun. Thank you so much for sharing that. And then do we met at the GLM graduation. I remember that in your remarks you shared very many interesting things about, you know, leadership, curiosity. And I remember you mentioned a few of the books you're reading at the time. So, if I may ask, what have you been reading lately? Well, thank you for asking and congratulations on your graduation. It was a really special moment to get to share with you and your classmates. I do love to read. Sometimes it's just fiction and like a little frothy, but when I happened reading that I think might be interesting to your listeners are a couple of books. 1 is called Seeing around corners. It's by an author named Rita McGrath, and it's sort of really kind of explores how business people can kind of see around corners to hopefully avoid extinction. It's it's super interesting. Another one that I'm reading is called The Catalyst. It's by Jonah Berger, and I love it because as an advocate and a lawyer, you're often trying to change people's minds. And so you're using advocacy in your words, you know, to sort of cause them to change their behavior. But he approaches it from a different angle or the reverse angle, which is to sort of say, like, why won't somebody change as opposed to trying to tell them to change, like what's holding them back? And so that's been really insightful for me is I think about that, but you know, as an advocate, but also as somebody who's like looking to find new clients. And then the third book that I'm reading, which I'm really, really enjoying is called How Big Things Get Done. And I'm going to mispronounce this gentleman's name, but it's by Bent Weiberg and Dan Gardner. And it's sort of just, it's one of those books that I love because it sort of brings to light principles and how they can apply across your life. So, you know, how do you get a home renovation done? How do you get a big project network? How do you get your taxes done? Like whatever it is. But it's sort of breaks it down and talks about some of the things that we do. So I always love books like that where I can kind of apply it in the world of work, but also in my home life. And then, you know, again, I try to share insights with my children who roll their eyes and ignore me and then just go back to doing whatever it is that they want. That's funny. I I I have a small baby daughter right now and it's always funny to hear a little bit about the stories of parenting and and the things that I don't need to worry about too much just yet. It's very well enjoy her. I'm sure she's a delight and you're learning from her everyday, just like you know, you kind of always keep learning, I think from the people around you, including your children. So, so Binder, going back and digging a little bit more on your career aspect, you know, you're moving across many rows over the years from big law to senior executive roles and now in the the advisory and board work. I'd love to ask, you know, looking back, what were a few of the moments are are decisions that really shaped your path? Yeah, I've had a lot of time to think about sort of the career trajectory. And there's, I will fully admit, there's moments where I wonder, gosh, do I look like a flake like that? I just couldn't really stick with anything. But I'd like to reposition that. And I think what's driven so much change or what has driven me to take different opportunities and to pursue different opportunities is really just an interest, like being curious and wanting to try out different things. And sometimes she's getting restless. I'm definitely not a master of of any of the things that I've done. But I feel like at some point I kind of learned a lot, a lot and enough. And then I kind of get curious about what I can do, you know, what more can I learn and how can I, you know, extend my skills? And so when I think about chemo moments or decisions, it's they've really been driven in many ways by like that time when I get to that restlessness right where I feel like, you know, what else is out there and what else could I be learning and how could I keep growing? And when I follow those instincts, if they've largely turned out great, it sometimes doesn't seem like a logical choice to folks. I, I can tell you my parents wondered a few times about why I was like, you know, sort of pivoting from a good path that I was on. But and they haven't always worked out right. Like it hasn't always been a perfect road. And sometimes the thing that I chased after and got was maybe, maybe not ideally the greatest script for me, but I've always learned from it. And there's always another term that you can take, another choice that you can make it sort of I'm forever optimistic that there will continue to be great things ahead. And, and I think sometimes you don't make all of your luck, but I think you can certainly choose your attitude in in what you do. I can envision the listeners with a smile on their face as they, they listen to that love, love it. So you, you worked closely with boards as actives and teams in all kinds of situations. I can imagine. And I can imagine, you know, moments of, of pressure, moments of growth, all kinds of things. I was just telling you a little bit about the, the situation that I am, you know, where you know, a firm has acquired another. So there's a lot of like growing pains as well that come with that process, right? Can be beautiful. And can have all of that together. And I'm curious, you know, what have you learned going through these situations? And, and I think that's something you highlighted, it's trust. So I wanted to ask you, you know, what have you learned about trust that tends to break trusting side organizations? Yeah, you know, it's, I think it's just at the core of it, it's just really bringing like a real empathetic sort of approach to the work that we do and, and the and the places that we're at and the people that we work with. Ultimately, we're all human beings going through this life, whether it's your first time, if you or your, you know, maybe your second or whatever, depending on your your religious background or affiliation. But but we're all going through the slave and we don't always choose the change that happens to us. Sometimes it occurs to us and and it happens to us and sometimes we choose it. And you know, when you choose change, you sort of only focus on all the things that, you know, could be great about it and largely diminish the bad stuff. But often when change happens to you, you know, you end up focusing on things that could be difficult or negative. And I think, you know, for me, as I've navigated like my own career and, and, you know, sort of blending together my life, my personal life and my personal aspirations, but also my professional life, and then working in different environments with different people through different situations. It always comes back down to kind of recognizing that there's a human in all of this, right? That, you know, and that people are going to be sometimes struggle with the change that's happening to them or to the situation. They might be afraid, they might be, you know, scared they might actually be really excited about it. Sometimes, you know, any strength over used can be, can be a a weakness. And so, you know, being overly excited about something can cause you to, can cause people to rush into something without maybe thinking about it. And so, you know, I would say through my career in different places and spaces, and I've played all of those roles. Sometimes I'm the person who's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, guys, we need to slow down a little bit and have some guardrails. So, you know, we, we know kind of the direction that we want to go. And sometimes I'm the catalyst in the room who's like, how like, we gotta go, we gotta go faster. We got to make a decision. We, we have to do that. And I think, you know, it's, it's, you know, trying to read the room, read the understand where people are coming from and taking an approach. And sometimes it's wrong and it's not going to land right. And so you have to recalibrate and guess have the humility to say I messed that up or like, let's try this again. And, and I find like most people and are willing to, right. I mean, sometimes the stakes are high and, you know, the risk feels high, But at the end of the day, there's very few things I think, at least in my world that can't be undone in some way, right? I, I mean, I'm not a brain surgeon. I'm not, you know, I'm only a lawyer or I'm only an executive. But you know, I always sort of try to think about it through the shoes of, you know, the people that I'm working with are encountering, right? And how are they feeling about it? How can I make this a bit simpler? Do I have knowledge? Do I have some skills? Do I have maybe a little extra courage or support that I can give them to help them get through this phase? One thing that I've noticed and I've heard a little bit as I interview more and more lawyers who have, you know, gone through the route of, you know, being an early career associate going to mid level, going to senior. It sounds like quite a few of the lawyers struggle when there is this shift from being a technical expert and from, you know, actually executing the work to becoming a business partner to becoming a leader as well as a kind of your career grow. And you are kind of required to do that. So I'm curious for you and your personal journey, what helped helped you to make that transition and maybe what skills that really matter to you as you were going through that beyond just the legal knowledge? Yeah, well, I feel like for me, I wanted to start, I wanted to start my career in a law firm because I felt like becoming an expert and something was really, I think in some ways the end goal. Like I was like, OK, once I become like an expert and in my universe that seemed like it would be to become a partner, but then I would know everything. And, you know, there you go, career, learning, all done. And I think what I found is in the firm is like there was no end of learning, which was amazing. And the more senior I got, the more expensive I got, which then sort of drove me into sort of being a narrower and narrower lawyer, which was amazing because I was really good at what I did. And I got to like deal with like highly technical things around the specific area of work that I did. But what I also started to realize I was getting a bit restless about was to sort of look around the world and see other people doing what seemed to be interesting things. And, and for me, that was like in house and learning different skills and utilizing different skills. And so it caused me to sort of wonder about, well, what about that? Like maybe I've got like, I'm interested in that and I think I've shown some skills in the place that I'm not. So maybe let's, let's try that out. And so I think when I went in house was for me where I really saw the, the possibility of what one could do outside of legal advisory. Because of course, you know, I'm working very closely with my colleagues, you know, stop thinking about them like clients, because we're all in this together, right? We're part of the same organization. We're sort of subject to the same rules, But, you know, we also are building something together and we're working our way through challenges and new opportunities. And so, you know, I saw how different people were leading their teams. I was part of a team and I have an official manager and I saw how he managed me and what it was like to truly work with like a team as opposed to sort of what can happen in a law firm where it's a group of people working together on a common purpose, which is, I guess ultimately what a team means. But it just felt very different in in that corporate structure. And it for me, it was really exciting. And my first leadership opportunity was one where I really had to shift, you know, I had, I lost felt like I lacked in a bit of confidence because I had really had to shift away from being like an expert in the thing that I've been doing for years and years and years to embracing the leadership opportunity, which is not a thing you can do off the side of your task. Like it takes deliberate effort and it takes it takes work and it has a lot of contingencies and unexpected things that happen along the way. But I, you know, my first leadership opportunity was to lead a team of lawyers. And I knew the work that some of them did, but I didn't know all the work that they did. I didn't have the legal expertise, which I had been sort of been confident with for so long. And so to step into leadership and to, you know, I had to really think about what did I bring to the table and how can I offer that in a way that like recognizes the expertise and the experience of my new team in areas that I didn't have it? And like, what could I bring? What was I offering along the way? And so I think, you know, learning to be curious, learning to ask questions, to learn and to like being empathetic, but also like being humble and have exercise in humility and showing that to folks because, you know, that that was part of it. But I also think that that exercise helped me relate a lot more to my business colleagues outside of the legal department. Because, you know, oftentimes business folks can be really, and our clients can be really nervous about talking to lawyers because we have this knowledge and this expertise and maybe a confidence around these matters. And it might be their first time, or it could be something that they're really uncomfortable with, or it's new or it's bad usually, you know. And so how, you know, to sort of be able to kind of approach even my team and the work that they did with the sort of curiosity and interest to ask the questions, to ask the dumb questions, to explore things with them to ask, you know, why are we doing it this way? You know, I could really, I think I found a way to really relate to my business colleagues and sometimes ask the questions that maybe they were intimidated to ask because I could, right? I had nothing to lose by asking. Well, maybe a little bit of perspective, my team, but you know, then we turned up to, you know, then they can see the other things that I'm good at doing, which is relationship building and perhaps, you know, bridging advice in a way that they could deliver the pure legal answer. Maybe, maybe together we could deliver it in a way that could be really consumed by our colleagues and have them understand it and really own it and and really be able to. Thank you so much for sharing those. As I was preparing for this podcast today, I I did a little bit of research on on your story and a little bit of your career. And it was it was just incredible to to see all that you've done. And I saw that you've held rows that seated at the intersection of law, governance, risk, culture. So all of that together. I was curious, you know, you said that you first had this go of maybe becoming a specialist or, you know, being a pop of the chain of wherever you were here is from looking backwards now in in another way. What are some ways that you think that lawyers young in their career are are starting out in their career can really add some more value to, you know, the strategy table or or even should the day-to-day interactions at at times it's hard to see how young in your career you can add, even though you know, each person has such an incredible life story and and how they got there is just incredible on its own. I'm curious to hear some of your thoughts on that. Yeah, that's a great question and it's one that I get asked a lot. And I, I think, you know, particularly for those folks who are in law firms, they can be very hierarchical places. And, and you know, you can feel like, OK, I'm starting as an articling student or I'm starting as a, you know, an associate. And, and my role is to do, you know, this in, in a square box and I'm to do the research and I'm to do the first drafts. And, you know, here, this is the limit of what I can do. I think showing leadership is somebody expressed it to me early on in my career is sort of working to perform the job that's ahead of you, right. So to sort of not to step into people's toes, but really like showing an interest and showing the predilection, like showing that you're moving towards being able to do that next level role. So whether that's, you know, you as the associate, you know, sort of showing an interest in all of the different components of what like a partner in your firm may be doing like it not just knowing the law, but like how does the business piece work with that? And how do Billings work and how do they relate talk to clients and how do they do business development and sort of being brought into that? And sometimes you have to ask, sometimes, you know, you might have a partner who will bring you along and sometimes you might have somebody who doesn't want to bring you along either, right? They may not be interested in sharing that with you. So if it's not, then maybe look for somebody else. Maybe you as a group of associates can talk together about like what you're learning and share knowledge as peers. You know, I think leadership is, is about paying it forward. And so, you know, you, you might be the, the, the bottom rung of the ladder for a while that at some point there's probably going to be somebody in a different role, maybe a more junior role to you or maybe a pure roller and some other area where you can, you know, share your knowledge and grow. I also think outside of the workplace, there's opportunities for you to show some leadership. Probably one of the things I did really early, maybe even a bit too early in some ways, was I joined a board right when I was, I think a third or fourth year associate and I felt very like, what am I doing here? I really, I mean, I know I'm a lawyer, but I'm like terrified that anybody on the board might ask me a actually sort of legally oriented because I've only been practicing for three years. But it also really helped me understand what my training and my education, how that allowed for me to like add perspective, to give a point of view, to think critically about some of the things or just to bring a different perspective to the matters before the board. And I really learned a lot about I think I gained some confidence in what I could offer. I learned so much from my fellow board members, which, you know, we occupying a different space together. We weren't doing the same kind of work. We have this common purpose in this organization that we were there for. And I just think it was it was it was a real game changer for me thinking about the way that I could contribute to an organization in different ways. It was also a place for me to practice some skills that I didn't necessarily have chances to do when in my day-to-day, like work practice, right? So, you know, chairing a meeting, taking the minutes for it, like watching, you know, how the chair of the board or particular chair of the committee was running things. And then like really learning from their example and then later to step into that, into those shoes to become like a committee chair and doing the work there. So, you know, I think there's sometimes, we sometimes think that the only place we can demonstrate leadership or the most logical place to do it is to do it in the workplace. You don't always have opportunities. Maybe maybe you do. Maybe you can create them for yourself. You don't have to wait for them to exist. But you can also find other places to show leadership and to practice those skills. And I always sort of joke, but, you know, my first true opportunities to really run big meetings was I was involved. I was the chair of like my kids school council, like the parent council. And those were like the most fraught meetings. Like even since like 20 years later, we're still like some of the worst meetings I've ever been in because there's nobody like, you know, a ferocious parent who's really upset about something and trying to deal with that. It worked. Just seems like, oh, this is just work. We're all quite rational actors when it comes to this, but when it comes to our kids, less so. So, you know, I think about the experience that I gained from working through and having to kind of lead a group through really contentious issues. I think about those skills and you know, where I didn't do it right and and where I had to learn to do better the next time and who was there to support me and like offer me some coaching and guidance and how I could do better. So then when I actually went into like, you know, sharing a workplace meeting of some sort of like this is easy. We're all rational actors here. This is just our work. ANYWAYS, it's so, you know, getting practice in places maybe where it's a bit safer can be a great way. And anyways, I think there's lots of ways we can show leadership just to go to the point of like creating an opportunity for yourself. So one of the things I did when I was a junior associate or I guess a mid level associate is wanted to create like a bit of a learning series for all of the other associates in the financial services group that I was in. So I was probably a little bit more on the senior side, but there were some ahead of me and there was definitely lots more juniors than there were articling students who would come through. And so I kind of came up with this little idea and I pitched it to management and they were like, sure, if you want to do it, it seems like a lot of work, but if you want to do it, I'm like, sure. And so I invited each of the partners in the group to sign up for like a lunch session with one month. And you know, the firm supported paying for some pizza. And I said, here's your topic and you don't have to prepare for it. Just come and talk to us about credit agreements or security documents. I mean, they're partners. They know the stuff inside out. So just share some of your knowledge. And, you know, the first couple were it was a little hesitant to get them to come, But then after that, it was just this amazing opportunity for them to showcase their knowledge for, you know, my colleagues and me to learn more and to be able to ask questions in live time, not in the middle of a transaction where we might, you know, there was no time to be able to ask these questions or to, you know, sort of get into the minutia of at all. But it was a little bit more of a relaxed moment. And yeah, so I, it was an opportunity for me to show like a bigger picture thinking of like, OK, I think this could be really, really beneficial to me. It was selfishly driven, but also to my colleagues. And I think it created a nice sense of community for us too. So you can always create those opportunities for yourself if you're so inclined. I love to hear that. Really. Really appreciate it and I can tell that mentoring, the community work, teaching, all of that, looking from the outside at least, seems to be very much part of your personality, part of who you are, part of your values, and part of something that you really strives to do a lot throughout your career, even at senior levels. So I wanted to ask you, you know, why has this part of your career stayed important to you and and what kind of role did mentoring, both on the receiving and on the giving end played in your professional life? I have been the beneficiary of some great mentoring along the way. I can think of so many pivotal moments in my life and the people who were around me, sometimes they were close to me. Sometimes they just, you know, maybe was a bit happenstance and circumstantial and, and who I happen to find in a moment. But I'm definitely sort of an experiential learner and I learn a lot from hearing people's stories and like getting to have those conversations. When I think about really important moments in my life, there were always mentors. There were always coaches. I've engaged in professional coaching and in that, like I've hired coaches to help me through transitions and new jobs or new opportunities and tough times. Sometimes I do a lot of coaching for people now as part of my advisory practice, but you know, sort of always more informally white benefited from it and I've always tried to pay it forward. And I think candidly as well, like being a South Asian woman who's been, you know, have the kind of success that I've had to date and so far and I'm very grateful for. But having that kind of success isn't all that usual in the Canadian legal marketplace. And so I take, you know, sort of the privilege of being able to have that experience and wanting to kind of pave the path and make it a little bit easier for somebody else, maybe just to even be encouraging. I can't always clear barriers for everybody. I think I've knocked a few out of the way just in in my progress through my career, but just thinking about ways to kind of encourage and support people where. Maybe they're, they're scared and maybe they just need a little encouragement to help them think through like what is the worst thing that could happen if if you took this path or if you asked for this opportunity or if you went this way and just kind of working our way through it. I think sometimes, especially for lawyers, you know, we're rewarded from law school itself on our ability to catastrophize, right, To think about the worst case scenario. And if you let that consume your personal life, it can really stop you from pursuing maybe things that you want. And frankly, I think some joy and some fun. And so, you know, it's a, it's a great skill to have, but you kind of need to know when you need to turn it down a little bit and allow for yourself to kind of, you know, take advantage of the things that are there. So I think for me, mentoring, coaching, teaching, teaching, I think it's just a great way to know, to test yourself on what it is that you know, and how can you explain the things that you know in ways that are really accessible for whoever it is that you're teaching it to you? I do it with clients. I do it, you know, with colleagues. I, you know, do it upwards. I do downwards because there's concepts that are familiar to me or that I just learned about and that I, you know, have to all explain to somebody. And so, you know, the teaching piece has been something that's always, you know, driven me. And I've used education as sort of a theme throughout my life as like, how can I teach you forward and how can we bring more people in? I think, well, just power. And so I, and I don't believe it should be contained to a small group. So I like to democratize it and teaching. It's important. And then on the coaching and mentoring piece, like sometimes you're just going to somebody will just encounter you in a moment in their life when they need you to. They need somebody to like share a different perspective who's not a family member or friend or a spouse or who might not a parent or whatever, but they just need to, to talk to somebody. And, and, you know, I don't think I ever really did it in the hopes that somebody like that they would thank me for it or that I would repay it. But I received a lot of that kind of coaching and support and mentoring along the way. And so I just want to pay it forward. And it really does warm my heart when I meet people who are really senior and like, they're saying things to me like you were my teacher. Do you remember you met me when I was like a student in during the interviews? And I'm just like, oh, my goodness. I ended up retaining a firm and the lawyer on it with somebody who was in like a law school class that I taught like 12 years ago. And now she's a partner at the firm. And I was just like, whoa, what has happened? But it was very cool though, and she remembered me and I actually did remember her. So it was really nice to have that complete circle. Fantastic. And I really appreciate you taking the time to share those very, very endearing examples. And so as we as we get to the end of our podcast tonight, I wanted to ask you what kind of advice would you give to an early career professional just starting out on the profession or an internationally trained lawyer who's just continuing now their career here in Canada and trying to find their place? I think both early career professionals and internationally trained lawyers find themselves in sort of a similar place, right? You're trying to break into something, whether you've already been practicing for years or maybe a few years, or you're new to it, you're trying to break into a world that sometimes can feel very closed off. So I would say, you know, have have be relentless about it. I mean, not obnoxious, but relentless, like keep trying, keep going, find your way to keep motivated, whether that's keeping track of like, you know, every place that you've applied to you and the responses that you've had. If they're not, you know, but like just keep, keep at it and find different ways to keep yourself engaged and to be meeting people and, you know, just to be curious and to keep learning about things. I don't think you need to go out and get new certificates and degrees. That's not the kind of learning that I'm talking about. I think it is being present in our world, reading about interesting things that capture your interest. Maybe maybe going a little bit down the rabbit hole and thinking about how it applies to what, what, you know, I think all of us, whether we're, you know, early in our, a new brand new lawyer or a brand new lawyer in Canada, we all bring a wealth of experiences behind us, academic, personal, experiential, all of those pieces really make, you know, have a lot, give us a lot to offer. And so I would say, you know, just like keep putting it out there and keep expanding what you have to offer. And, and it'll click like I, I truly, truly believe that sometimes in unexpected ways, But I'd say just, you know, keep optimistic, keep positive, and always be interested in kind of improving yourself through the work that you do and the opportunities that you create for yourself and the things that you learn. Amazing It's been such a pleasure to to learn from you and to share this conversation with you. Thank you so much for for being in the podcast today. Been doing. Thank you so much, Claudio. I this is such a great thing that you're doing and I was really pleased to be part of it. So thank you for the opportunity. Absolutely, and thank you all for tuning into today's episode.