The Legal Genie Podcast

Rise of the ALSP with Titus Rahiri, CEO of KorumLegal - Episode 21

September 09, 2021 Lara Quie Season 3 Episode 21
The Legal Genie Podcast
Rise of the ALSP with Titus Rahiri, CEO of KorumLegal - Episode 21
Show Notes Transcript

In Episode 21 of the Legal Genie podcast, your host, Lara Quie, is in conversation with Titus Rahiri, CEO and Founder of Alternative Legal Services Provider (ALSP), KorumLegal. 

Titus is based in Hong Kong.  A senior corporate and commercial lawyer with over 20 years of experience in Europe and the Asia Pacific, he has led legal teams in New Zealand listed FTSE and NASDAQ listed companies, as well as high growth and unicorn businesses. 

Titus has experience in technology, digital, and e-commerce across various industries and has a keen interest in the legal transformation space and the business of law

In this episode, Titus discusses his motivations for becoming a lawyer, and how he ended up where he is today – the CEO of a “NewLaw” entity called KorumLegal. 

Titus shares his upbringing in New Zealand as part of a large working-class Maori family. He was the first in his family to go to university and struggled with being a minority and feeling like a “fish out of water”.

Having a “challenger” mindset, he chose a modern law school, which was less popular with the more established law firms but managed to do his training with Russel McVeagh, a large New Zealand law firm. 

At work, Titus crossed paths with both good and terrible mentors, eventually making the move in-house, to get the chance to see the full life cycle of deals and the commercial drivers behind them. 

Like many antipodeans, Titus moved to the United Kingdom, where he worked at Sky, a media company, and later Expedia, where he was exposed to numerous opportunities, including a sponsored MBA, leadership of Hotels.com, and a posting in Asia.

Titus created KorumLegal to cater for the gaps he observed in the middle of the legal industry pyramid. While law firms still occupy the top section of very specialized expert legal advisory, he believes that the middle section is ripe for disruption by in-house legal, technology, and new law models. 

KorumLegal has several products providing flexible talent, which help to solve their clients’ pain points and support in-house legal teams from MNCs to start-ups, especially in the areas of technology, media, telecoms, corporate and broader financial services.

Titus shares his advice for lawyers in private practice and describes the paradigm shift of power from the firms to the in-house teams as a consequence of the GFC. 

I hope you enjoy the episode!

 

To learn more about Titus, you can find him on LinkedIn and connect with him here, check out KorumLegal’s website here, or get in touch with him at titus.rahiri@korumlegal.com.

Also:

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· Look out for the next episode coming soon.

You can connect with Lara Quie:

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· Or Email at Lara@LaraQAssociates.com

Legal Genie Episode 21 with Titus Rahiri

[00:00:00] Hello, and thank you for joining me, Lara Quie, for the Legal Genie Podcast. As a former corporate lawyer and APAC Head of Business Development for an international law firm, my mission with this podcast is to provide you with insights into the careers and lives of movers and shakers in the legal industry. 

[00:00:41] Mentors are hard to come by so, by listening to these conversations, I hope that you will gain some valuable insights that will help you move forward in your career and personal life. I ask my guests to share their advice and experience with you. As an executive coach, I work one-on-one with lawyers to [00:01:00] grow their practice and self-confidence. I also run mastermind groups and business development accelerators designed to bring like-minded people together, to learn, grow, and support each other. 

[00:01:11] If you'd like to learn more, please connect with me on LinkedIn or through my website. The details are in the show notes. Please rate and review the Legal Genie Podcast to help us reach more people who may find it helpful. So let's move on to this week's episode. I hope that you enjoy the conversation. Yeah.

[00:01:41] Lara Quie: Hello and welcome to Episode 21 of the Legal Genie Podcast with me, your host, Lara Quie. Today I'm delighted to have with me, Titus Rahiri, CEO and Founder of KorumLegal. Titus is based in Hong Kong and he is a senior corporate and [00:02:00] commercial lawyer with over 20 years' experience in private practice and as a general counsel across Europe and Asia Pacific.

[00:02:07] He has led legal teams in New Zealand-listed, FTSE and NASDAQ listed companies, as well as high growth and unicorn businesses on a range of matters, including general corporate and commercial business advisory and strategic risk and compliance. Titus has experience in technology, digital, and e-commerce across various industries and has a keen interest in the legal transformation space and the business of law.

[00:02:32] So, welcome to the show, Titus. It's really great to have you here. 

[00:02:36] Titus Rahiri: Thank you, Lara. Thanks for that very kind welcome. It's great to be here. 

[00:02:41] Lara Quie: Yeah. So I always like to start at the beginning with all my guests. So it would be great to know about your childhood, so where you spent your childhood and where you grew up.

[00:02:50] Titus Rahiri: Sure. So I grew up in New Zealand, in a city called Toauranga. I'm the eldest of four kids. I came from a very [00:03:00] humble family a working class background, both my parents come from big families. My mom is one of 15 kids and my dad is one of 13 kids. So I grew up with a large family around me and it was very grounding from a, family environment space.

[00:03:18] But it's part of our culture. As a very proud Maori. Maori are indigenous to New Zealand. We have big families and we're very family orientated and communal orientated as opposed to individual orientated. So that was my background. So yeah, very humble beginnings but a lot of love and a lot of family around. 

[00:03:40] Lara Quie: And it's very noticeable that you have an incredibly impressive name. The name Titus is not a common one. So tell me about the inspiration for your name.

[00:03:50] Titus Rahiri: Yeah. there's two stories that I tell in relation to my name, depending on who I talk to the normal story I tell is that, I'm the first born, my parents had me when [00:04:00] they were very young and a month before me, my dad's sister also had a son and they called him Tobias and they got the name out of the Bible. And my parents are religious, but they not devout. They're not super religious. Anyway, so in the Bible, in the new Testament, there was a book of Titus and we had this Bible at home. And so that's where Titus came from. There's a book of Titus in the Bible. 

[00:04:26] So that's one story. And then the other story is that my dad also had a best friend called Titus. And they played rugby together at school and my dad traveled to Fiji and played high level rugby through school age and, then they had me. So yeah, that was another story around the name Titus 

[00:04:43] Lara Quie: it's certainly a very good and memorable name. So wondering about your journey into law, was there anyone in this very large family of yours who had trod that path and had inspired you to study law? 

[00:04:56] Titus Rahiri: No, they wasn't. I was the first in that large [00:05:00] family to go to university. And so I didn't really have anyone to look up to and to ask questions of, but it was something that was instilled in me at a young age and my grandmother, who's one of my heroes of my life (this is on my mum's side). She had 15 kids and then she worked at the hospital all through that time after she had all her kids, she went back to work at the hospital.

[00:05:25] At a young age, she said to me, because I used to talk a lot as a kid, she said, you should be a lawyer. And so from then, I had that in my head that I should be a lawyer. And then I was fortunate that I did do well at school. And I feel like I was very fortunate in that respect. And my parents finished school after secondary school.

[00:05:45] They didn't go on to any higher education. But they did the best that they could with what they had in terms of instilling that higher aspiration and goal alongside my grandmother. And so, because I talked alot and because my grandmother [00:06:00] said I should be a lawyer, that's what I did.

[00:06:03] And then towards the end of her life, when I was at university, actually she was diagnosed with cancer and the only hospital that was closest to where she lived was the hospital in the city that I was at university. And she came to do her chemo treatment and live with me in my student flat while she was doing that chemo treatment.

[00:06:24] Unfortunately she passed before I graduated from law school. She was a very big influence on my life and still is. 

[00:06:33] Lara Quie: It's wonderful to hear that close relationship you had with her, especially given the many demands she must've had from so many people in the family with her own 15 children and grandchildren and all sorts, my goodness, a real matriarch, a powerful woman. So it's wonderful to hear. And, it is funny how as a child and someone says something like that to you, how it can have a huge [00:07:00] impact. I mean my own story, my godfather said to me, "of course, you're going to go to Oxford. This is my college. You're going to go there". And it never occurred to me that I would go anywhere else. It was just like, yes, of course, I'm going there. 

[00:07:13] Titus Rahiri: Yeah. It's that, subliminal messaging, and you just keep reinforcing. But I didn't think I wanted to be a lawyer and all through school I thought I wanted to be a diplomat. But a law degree was a good degree to have to go into foreign affairs. And I studied all the languages, Japanese, French, and I speak Maori. So I thought I was setting myself up well to go into the foreign affairs diplomacy route and then law school happened and here I am still holding on to, aspects of, being a lawyer. But obviously my role has changed quite a bit.

[00:07:46] Lara Quie: Yeah. And so what was your experience like at law school? There are very differing degrees of satisfaction with law school in terms of obviously they cover all of the fundamentals when it comes to the letter of the law, [00:08:00] but when it comes to the commercial aspects and of course the so-called " soft skills", which actually are essential skills. Law school is very rarely actually support you in the growth of those other skills. 

[00:08:12] Titus Rahiri: Yeah , my law school experience was actually positive. I applied to a couple of law schools and then I got a scholarship to go to the one that I ended up going to and, that was Waikato university in Hamilton, in New Zealand.

[00:08:26] And New Zealand is still quite new in terms of law schools, et cetera. They don't have the history of Oxford or Cambridge, but there were some embedded law schools already in place. The law school that I went to was very new and new thinking. It was established only in 1990. And I started law school in 1996. And so the whole premise of the law school was around breaking traditions. And, looking at a more holistic approach to law, looking at the founding documents of New Zealand and the Treaty of Waitangi and the importance of [00:09:00] indigenous law as being part of the curriculum.

[00:09:02] So while it was still regulated in accordance with the rules around how legal education should be followed, some of the thinkers, and some of the academics that were within the law school were very progressive and so I was lucky to have that thinking. It's all new. Yeah. I mean, your first couple of years at law school you have a good time.

[00:09:24] You're in this new environment. You're thinking that the law is very different to what you learn at school when the whole thinking around it. And then third and fourth year of law school is when you buckle down and in my head, I said, I need to buckle down in the third year because that's when you start putting applications in for summer clerkships and graduates roles. I was the president of the Law students association for my law school or Co-President, actually and then was part of the New Zealand law students association.

[00:09:51] So I did some political roles during that time as well. But my law school experience was great and I was very lucky. When I look back [00:10:00] inherent within my personality is I've always taken the challenger stance and been in challenger situations.

[00:10:06] So my law school was a challenger law school. Some of the big law firms took one or two people from that law school every year instead of the 20, 30 or a hundred or so that they took from other law schools. So yeah, I enjoyed my time at, law school and it set me up well for my future career.

[00:10:26] Lara Quie: And so when it comes to training in New Zealand as a trainee, what does that look like? 

[00:10:33] Titus Rahiri: So I did what we call a summer clerkship at Russel McVeagh, which is one of the top three firms in New Zealand. And that was a chance for me to experience what it was like. There were very few brown people at Russell McVeagh.

[00:10:47] Everyone had a private school in the UK,they say public school education. And it was a very much a what school you went to sort of environment. And so they took a chance on [00:11:00] me. So I was very lucky and fortunate, but I also felt like a fish out of water because it was very different to environments that I had been in.

[00:11:07] So the summer clerkship usually runs from November till March over the summer in New Zealand. And then I went back after my final year and did graduate. And so when you go in as a graduate, you usually are across one or two practice areas. So we don't do the seat rotation like they do in the UK, for example, we did one or two. And it was a great experience. 

[00:11:29] I had some good mentors and I had some terrible mentors within the firm. You know, just t he same in any law firm environment, you have people with EQ and you have a lot of people without E Q. And so the rationale for being there was to work as many hours as you could in the day and, it's the core part of your training, you have to do it. But I was lucky in that I had a couple of mentors who were similar to me in a partner role. So they were people that I could look up to, but there weren't very many.[00:12:00] 

[00:12:00] Lara Quie: Yeah, I think that's often the experience for young people when they go in. There's such a range of personalities and people, whether they're generous in coaching younger lawyers. So you were at Russel McVeagh for about five years in total. But at that point you felt confident enough to go in-house. So tell me about moving in-house and what that was like. 

[00:12:23] Titus Rahiri: Yeah. So I always try and think two steps ahead. So I knew I wanted to go to the UK. And it's the, trodden path for any Antipodean to do a few years of work, particularly in law firms in New Zealand or Australia, and then go over to UK and do a few years there. So I knew that was going to happen. And then I thought I'd round out my CV a little bit with some in-house experience. And I was a little bit disillusioned with the private practice experience that I had and the partners that I worked with. And so I was approached by a client to go in-house.

[00:12:57] And so I did that for a year, [00:13:00] which I loved you know, just seeing the end to end business being part of a more robust conversation around everything business-wise and how business connects and goes from start to finish. Whereas in my experience in private practice is that it was very truncated experience.

[00:13:17] You become part of a small part of a deal, but you don't get the full experience. And so. Yeah, that was great experience. And I worked with some great people who did have the EQ, but they were also fun to be around. They were very smart, it was a work smart culture not work to the end of the day.

[00:13:33] And they were making positive change to society. I'm not saying that us as lawyers don't make positive change, but you see it from a different perspective. Yeah, so I loved that experience and I worked with a great boss and mentor. And I was actually sad to leave Mercury to go to the UK, but I was also excited to go to the UK because it was the big wide world. And from my large family, no one had really done that. So I was also treading new paths for the [00:14:00] rest of my, my, big family. 

[00:14:02] Lara Quie: Yeah. Sounds like you're a real pioneer for them holding the flag for other Maori people, which is really great. And so you went across to London and got yourself a position as an associate at King and Wood Mallesons. So obviously that sort of Antipodean connection helped you get that sort of role. But you were only there for a year. So tell me about that. 

[00:14:25] Titus Rahiri: so It was SJ Berwin at that time. And it was very well-regarded in the private equity space. And it was a busy time in the market then, and there was a lot of activity in 2005. And basically they were hiring anybody that came off a plane with five years of experience, because they were desperate for people.

[00:14:47] And they could get Antipodeans relatively cheap. When you move to the UK, they say, ah, we're going to take two years off your PQE, even though we may have done longer law degrees or worked It's just the way it was. So, I worked [00:15:00] there and I was well warned by other Antipodeans they're like, you're going to be working all day, all night and all weekends and there were people leaving in that year that I was there. It was a great experience. It was a way to get my foot in the door in the UK, understand how things work in the private practice start networking and, hoping to do some travel in the meantime. But the travel didn't really happen.

[00:15:23] In that one year that I was at SJ Berwin, as it was then then it became King & Wood Mallesons. I qualified got admitted in the UK. So I was ticking things off which set me up to move into an in-house role after that. 

[00:15:37] Lara Quie: And moved to Sky and Sky Broadcasting in those days was definitely very exciting. Rupert Murdoch really threw a lot of money at it. It was a really big brand. So it must've been an exciting time to be a legal advisor with them. Tell me about that role.

[00:15:55] Titus Rahiri: Yeah, it was exciting time. I'd mainly done corporate work. And the [00:16:00] role there was commercial technology in the legal team. At that time, I think it was around 90 to 100 lawyers in the legal team. So it was like a mini law firm and they had the same departments as a law firm would have.

[00:16:13] Yeah, great company and great product in terms of broadcast, they were moving into mobile, moving into other outside of traditional broadcast TV. And so it was an exciting time to be there. James Murdoch was the CEO, then, and he who was all of 32, 33, 34. That was a great time and I got to start to move to where I ended up being as a lawyer, but into the commercial technology media telecoms space. So moving away from corporate which I enjoyed. Worked with a great team of people. And so it was a nice company. When I look back, I've been lucky to work at companies with good products and things that I enjoy.

[00:16:53] So yeah, my Sky experience was great and worked with some great people. They looked after their people. And these [00:17:00] people still there now when I was there yeah, 20 years I'm about 20 years, nearly 20 years later, which says a lot about the company and how they look after their people and one thing, I'm sure I'm right when I say this one of the strap lines was always "believe in better". Which is a strong statement about what your, purpose and your intent as a corporate, but also it, drills down to individuals. So I've always remembered that it's always been in the back of my mind.

[00:17:32] Lara Quie: That sounds like a really good experience. And as you say, helped you get into the technology space and be part of a very large legal team and to see what that looks like in a corporate environment and with a company with a very strong purpose and ideology about building things better for the future. So tell me about your move to Expedia group and how you ended up back in Asia. 

[00:17:57] Titus Rahiri: Yeah, so Expedia was [00:18:00] great opportunity for me, they were relatively new in the cause they're very U.S. Centric company and they were expanding into Europe. And so I was very early in the legal team when I joined in 2008 and looking at the growth of the business across Europe and also developing new products and new business lines and being alongside the commercial teams to figure out one how we bring these new products and businesses to market, and then helping the business expand across however many countries in Europe. And then in the meantime, build a legal team around it. And so, I was at Expedia for nearly six years there and moved up the ranks to eventually lead the team. 

[00:18:45] Expedia was an amazing example of understanding the importance of data in your decision-making. So because they were digital first, everything they did was data-driven.

[00:18:55] And I think they were one of the, earlier your tech companies to be driven by data.[00:19:00] People are still saying data driven now, but that back in 2008, it was all about data. And so I learned a lot on both the legal side and the business side, and then I had the opportunity to lead the legal team and to grow our legal team across Europe.

[00:19:15] And then I also was on the leadership team of one of the Expedia brands, the Hotels.com brand, which at the time had about 6 billion in revenue. And I might've been early thirties on the global leadership team, executive of the hotels.com brand. So I got exposed and I was the legal representative to senior leadership across all areas of business from marketing, from sales, from regional to data, to technology, to CTO, to the CFO of this business. And so I was very fortunate. You would never get that in a law firm and you would never get that even in an in-house role usually, but pushed up. And one of the reasons why was pushed up is that the leadership team moved from the U S to [00:20:00] London. And because I was in London and relatively senior role in Expedia, they said, will you be on the leadership team? I was like, okay. And then in leadership team meetings, every single person had an MBA.

[00:20:11] And so I thought I need to go get an MBA. And Expedia sponsored me to do an MBA . And I did that part-time while working full-time so my weekends, every month was taken up during this MBA and I thank Expedia for that opportunity because they were investing in my potential and the MBA was for me to rise up within the ranks. so a great experience at Expedia, and then the opportunity after my MBA, I reported to the global general counsel in Seattle. He's like," I'm a bit worried that you're gonna leave." I'm like, "yeah, I need a new challenge". And so he said, " come to Seattle, you can do something here."

[00:20:49] I was like " I'm going there five times a year. I don't want to go to Seattle". And he said "what about Asia?" Asia is our new frontier for growing the business. We were doing joint ventures in [00:21:00] China, did a joint venture with Air Asia. We're looking at acquisitions in Australia. And so that was a great opportunity for me.

[00:21:06] Lara Quie: Yeah, so that explains how you ended up in Hong Kong. And so, it sounded like you got such an insight into the business side, as you say, and the way that Expedia tapped into data and really understood that at the end of the day, actually it was a technology company as a platform.

[00:21:25] And then for Expedia initially it was about all the flights and rental cars and things, and then it branched out into hotels.com. And so I'm just imagining the huge volume of data. So many different pieces that needed to be put together and very large scales. So the contracts with each hotel and all of the different moving pieces, I mean, it's very high volume. So what sorts of technologies did you implement as a GC in that position to help manage that sheer volume of [00:22:00] data ? 

[00:22:00] Titus Rahiri: Yeah, so back in the early days, so around. 2009, 2010 Expedia was already doing digital signature. Some companies are still struggling to implement digital signature now. Expedia was very forward looking in that respect. When you run a global company, you need to expedite processes, and digital signatures is a no-brainer. I remember going to a conference in London, maybe it must've been 2016 and there was presentations on digital signatures by corporates, by in-house counsel.

[00:22:35] I'm like, this is so slow. So that's one example electronic billing e-billing through. Whatever product we were using at that stage. Having a workflow management solution where all the teams could communicate and, have a central repository of contract management matter management et cetera.

[00:22:54] So, yeah and the technology obviously has developed since then, but when I look back, it was [00:23:00] very forward thinking and, law firms try to do th eir own technologies in terms of how they engage and provide a better customer experience. Because when you're a general counsel, or when you're a senior counsel in, a big corporate, you have multitudes of law firms that you use.

[00:23:16] I cannot advise on potential competition issues in Germany. So you need to rely on external counsel but you need to manage it. And so law firms were competing to provide that extra service to be frank, it was quite poor back then. And I was sitting in a technology company providing digital solutions to customers, but I felt like the legal, both on the external legal, and even on the internal side, had a lot to catch up with.

[00:23:43] And I think you can see where I'm going here is there were opportunities for innovation and doing things better. And my MBA final project was around value innovation in legal services and the future of it all. And so I got [00:24:00] to interview some real thought leaders around new law ALSPS legal tech, and that was self-serving for Expedia, but also self-serving for me, because it gave me ideas around what I was interested in. I was going to say passionate, I am passionate passion can be lots of different things, but from a professional perspective this sort of innovation in the legal space was seeded around then with that culmination of things.

[00:24:29] So it was a frustration with what was available spending a lot of money on service that was great in some respects and not great in other respects. But also I was also an early adopter of some of the company's competitors to KorumLegal that we see now so I actually used their services and saw some pros and cons on that side as well.

[00:24:52] Because we were, as every general counsel is faced with reducing budgets. So obviously the global financial crisis was [00:25:00] happening around 2008, 2009 reduced budgets, but expansion mindset in terms of delivery of services to support the business growing. Yeah, so there was a lot in there. 

[00:25:11] Lara Quie: So thinking about those law firms that you used at Expedia, what advice can you give to lawyers in terms of what you, as an in-house counsel, you really need from them? What were the things that they didn't do well and that you feel that they, if they concentrated on these things, it would be really helpful? 

[00:25:32] Titus Rahiri: When you asked that question, a few firms and partners spring to mind in terms of what they did well. And so the first thing they did well was really understand our business, understand what makes it tick, understand what the business objectives are, the strategy of the businesses, understand our pros and cons or our strengths and weaknesses within the legal team. So really understand the business and the technology [00:26:00] underpinning, the business. Cause that's ultimately what what drives it, but also the competitive space and the regulatory space. 

[00:26:06] That's number one and two it's I, enjoy working with yeah, external counsel who are human. Yeah, I don't want to be working alongside a robot. Yeah, so be human and show your clients your value. I mean, I had a firm in an Asia country where they basically sa id, " sorry, you're not a top priority client". I think those are probably some of the key things obviously quality of work is, important. And the quality of work generally is, good from law firms. Some are better than others, but it's those non-tangible things. The human nature the value and understanding the business that drives loyalty for me, and it's something that we need to listen to as business owners and keep reminding ourselves as well.

[00:26:50] Lara Quie: Yeah, I think a lot of private practice lawyers do have that view, that going in-house is kind of an easier option. You do hear [00:27:00] private practice lawyers saying, oh such and such, couldn't hack it in private practice. They can't take the heat they've gone in house. What do you say to that? 

[00:27:09] Titus Rahiri: Yeah, there's a couple of things. So in my research and study, there was a paradigm shift, so the global financial crisis was a, pivotal moment in the paradigm shift, pre global financial crisis law firms sat at the epicenter of the legal ecosystem. So law firms dictated who, what, when, why.

[00:27:28] With the global financial crisis. there was a power shift to in-house legal teams. One in-house legal team started to grow their legal teams and do a lot more in-house and have control over that and they were making decisions with their feet and taking back some of that power.

[00:27:44] So, post global financial crisis, it's very much the general counsels and the in-house legal teams at the center of the legal ecosystem. And so we can see that even now having said that as, we both know, law firms still have a very strong [00:28:00] place and when I talk about the pyramid, the law firms have the top of the pyramid and the good law firms for that very specialized expert legal advisory. You need the big law firms and, the top partners. But there's a whole chunk in the middle that can be done by in-house counsel, by new law providers, ALSPs and your other, even non-legal legal, companies where there's a level of process and technology incorporated.

[00:28:27] So there's a chunk in the middle that is ripe for disintermediation and innovation. So to your question, I think there's a place for everybody in that ecosystem. But the power shift, there's been a change and there will continue to be change, which I think is positive for everybody.

[00:28:44] It creates competition. It creates better service for customers and creates the law, dare I say it being innovative in moving ourselves forward because it's about time. 

[00:28:56] Lara Quie: So after Expedia you were at Power Technologies for a [00:29:00] while, 

[00:29:00] Titus Rahiri: So I'll just talk quickly about Power Technologies. After leaving Expedia I had some time off to have a break for myself because I'd just done the MBA I'd moved countries it was very, busy. And I was mindful that I was exhausted and so I needed to take some time out and I took six months out. And during that time I was ideating around what next for Titus and that the Korum started to bubble at that time. But, then I was approached by someone I knew to go to Power Technologies it was a unicorn startup. It had $200 million investment from a single investor founded by someone who had built and sold a business before. 

[00:29:41] And within a year, it had been going for a lot longer before I joined within a year, it was put into administration and went bust and there was a whole lot of things that I learned going from Expedia to this environment around what makes a company tick and what makes a company not tick. So the Power of Technologies [00:30:00] experience was very informing and very insightful for me. And it taught me a few things around what not to do. So in March, 2016 Power Technologies went into administration. So basically I locked the door to the office in Hong Kong, which was almost the last remaining bit of Power Technologies.

[00:30:19] Cause there was thoughts around whether they could continue the Asia business. And then the next day I went with my laptop to a coworking space to start to put the ideas around what Korum looks like and what it could be, and it was just me and I had a couple of people that I bought in with me as contractors consultants to help me build it up. 

[00:30:43] Lara Quie: Let's get onto the inspiration behind the name Korum and, why you called it that.

[00:30:48] Titus Rahiri: So Korum the name is a play on the I guess the legal word quorum about bringing people together you need a quorum to transact a meeting. So for me, that [00:31:00] was about bringing people together to do business. And then the koru K-O-R-U in Maori the koru is signifies the silver Fern frond, which is one of our national plants and signifies new life and prosperity. So the symbolism of that worked for me. And it also gave a nod to my, heritage, which I'm very proud of. It combined things that were important to me, I guess, the legal and the, New Zealand symbolism Yeah.

[00:31:29] So that's how the name came about. And, then was building a business plan talking to people to see whether this is something that they would be interested in. And I saw an opportunity and a gap in the Asia market for a homegrown Asia offering. The competitors or the the global names from the U S and the UK we're starting already in Asia, but there was nothing that was sort of Asia born.

[00:31:56] And so, I thought I'd back myself and, see if [00:32:00] this would fly. That was March, 2016 and the first six months I just tried to get in front of as many people as possible. Pounding the pavements talking at events, trying to get into events for free that sort of hustle.

[00:32:14] So I was always hustling hard. And we were lucky in that we got some clients relatively early, a family office in Hong Kong, Deliveroo for their Asia expansion. And then it started to build from there. Once you get that traction, you start to refine and you're always refining. And one, the value proposition for customers and then also your, business proposition internally. And here we are today, five years later. 

[00:32:41] Lara Quie: Yeah. So it's quite a journey that you've been on over the last five years. So tell me how the model has evolved and what it looks like today.

[00:32:50] Titus Rahiri: Yeah. So in Asia, we're still relatively new. So the conversations that we were having, it's unbelievable right now, but they didn't understand the secondment [00:33:00] model being provided by a non-law firm. So changing mindsets and opening mindsets to the possibilities was one of the early focuses around our people product and our people business.

[00:33:12] And then through conversations we were hearing what was on the minds of general counsels and, buyers of legal services and where the gaps were with what they were getting from traditional law and other providers. And so the next product to build for us was our process and technology business, which is essentially legal consulting for legal teams.

[00:33:35] So it was around legal project management, legal process management around optimization of processes, integration of legal tech, so that legal consulting business was the next product that we launched. And that was around 2017/18. And then to now to our managed legal services product, which is something that's relatively new and that we are testing out [00:34:00] which is essentially a outsource insource product for customers. 

[00:34:04] So from a product perspective that's, how we developed from a growth perspective we set up in Hong Kong. Then we set up in Singapore and then we set up in the UK and I've always looked at other potential markets, building a, template for being able to enter into new markets and offer the services that we have because we have the centralized platform that we're building.

[00:34:26] And. One of the big things I learned for Expedia is that you have to go local, understand the market and then build, but it's helpful to have a template to be able to build that and our strategy for Korum is always a gateway to Asia and being Asia focused because by being here and being Asia born as a company, I think we have a strong understanding of the market and the nuances and the sophistication and the lack of sophistication that makes Asia Pacific, what it is. And so, yeah, I mean it's, exciting times. 

[00:34:59] We've built [00:35:00] things, we've tested things and we've learnt a lot over the five years, but we're still here and we're still doing well. So I'm, very happy about that. And, having a great team has been a key part of that. 

[00:35:13] Lara Quie: And certainly your insights as in-house counsel yourself means that you are able to pull together the kind of offering that you feel would have supported you in your role previously as in-house counsel. So in what way does Corcoran's, products support a GC, let's say you've got a GCs sitting in Singapore and they are regional head. How can they use Korum? 

[00:35:39] Titus Rahiri: Yeah, and I think you're right. And I think a differentiator for us is that we can speak to our customers in a different It's not just the bum on the seat model, as some of our competitors are doing. We're very solutions, based, understand what the pain points and challenges are and mind map some potential solutions, it might not be just a bum on a [00:36:00] seat and having people within the team with legal experience and a law background I think is a very strong differentiator and value proposition for us.

[00:36:08] Because I has been frustrated in my previous role speaking with some of these providers where they don't understand the pain points and the challenges, they go straight to a solution because that's what they can offer. 

[00:36:19] So we're able to provide flexible legal talent. So basically on a s econdment basis, which is the tried and true model in Asia and, now is becoming a lot more known. and I think our specialty is across in terms of sectors out experience and expertise across commercial technology, media, telecoms, corporate, and financial services, the broad financial services.

[00:36:46] So those are the target sectors for us having said that, . Yeah. we've gone outside of those sectors as well. We also do work with startups, SMEs and we have tried different products tested and learn different [00:37:00] products in that space. And we'll continue to try and test and learn in that space because where my heart strings is having been there. You want to try and support and help these businesses as much as possible because they just can't afford the traditional. So trying to find a solution there. For the big GC corporates, it's, about having alternatives to what you might have right now.

[00:37:22] And so we all have different areas of expertise, skills, price points, availabilities at any given time. So for a flexible talent secondment having a choice. If you go out to three providers having that choice to be able to make a decision. So that's what I say on the people side, on our process and tech side, we're doing some work with some great global companies around how they can be better and do better within their legal teams. And so looking at a pain point or a challenge and helping to problem solve that with [00:38:00] customers. So for example, we have a global listed Japanese company and an Italian company merged together. 

[00:38:08] They are funded by KKR large global private equity, and they want to IPO. And so we were brought in to help bring those legal teams together and optimize the way they do things. So that's our management consulting arm around how we can take a deep dive into the business.

[00:38:24] Interviews with key stakeholders, both legal and business, and then come up with solutions that might work for them. And I enjoy that stuff because it is you can see and feel the change being a positive thing for the team. The challenge of course, is in the change management and making sure things get implemented.

[00:38:43] And on the managed legal services It's about providing specialist expertise where, a GC or in-house counsel identifies that there might be a gap. And so as I said, this is a product that we're developing. And there may be some [00:39:00] challenges around how we go to market with this. And it's different for different regions, different regulations, et cetera. But that's all part of the fun is trying to find ways to deliver for our customers and our clients. 

[00:39:14] Lara Quie: It sounds like it's innovative. Meeting all of the things that you wanted in your legal career and paving the way for, new law for new ways of doing things, understanding what the pain points are of your customers, and also creating a new opportunity for, lawyers in their role.

[00:39:34] They don't need to stick in the big law track of just staying at their desk in a big law firm for the next 16 years, they can go in-house and they can become an independent consultant. They can be a sole practitioner. And, I think that this is the great thing about different opportunities and people being able to choose and try things out and see if it suits them and [00:40:00] go in and out and, really forge their own path. And that certainly you've been a pioneer in forging your own path. So that's been great. So what is the best way for people to get in contact with you if they want to to connect?

[00:40:11] Titus Rahiri: Sure. I'm on LinkedIn Titus Rahiri on LinkedIn and then otherwise on our Korumlegal website through there, otherwise. My email is titus.rahiri @korumlegal.com. 

[00:40:26] Brilliant. Thank you very much for being on the show today, Titus. 

[00:40:30] Titus Rahiri: Thank you. Thank you, Lara. 

[00:40:31] Lara Quie: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Legal Genie Podcast. If you found the content at all valuable, please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts. It helps other people in the legal industry find the show. And don't forget to share this with anyone you think would benefit from listening to it as well. Until next time, have a magical week ahead. [00:41:00]