Intro Music

Tyler Finn 

Welcome to a special episode of the abstract shooting here in Bangalore, India. Today on the podcast, I am joined by Rohit Kumar, former SVP and General Counsel at Ola Rohit brings a unique lens to reinvention curiosity and creating solutions that center both empathy and scale. He's gone from managing cross border legal issues at Fortune 100 companies to building software that helps people collaborate around the world with clarity and confidence. We're going to have a conversation today about shifting from more traditional law to tech, the courage to bet on yourself, and how seemingly small frustrations can become catalysts for bigger ideas. Rohit, welcome to this episode of the abstract.

Rohit Kumar 

Thank you, Tyler. I look forward to having this discussion.

Tyler Finn 

Okay, let's go back maybe to the beginning. Share a little bit about your journey, starting in law. You know, you spent time at a top tier firm, you did some high stakes global work. What was it that drew you to this path?

Rohit Kumar  

Look, I think lot of it was not planned. I think I decided to be a lawyer almost 28 - 29 years back and law was not considered as a profession to pursue. Back then in India, typically, people would have a medical or engineering profession to look forward to. But no, I met somebody who was, you know, quite upbeat about law as a profession, and particularly corporate law as a profession, and that that drew me to to law, and I ended up being where I, you know, completing my law, having a fabulous journey, starting with, you know, little bit of litigation work, but then transitioning to a full service corporate law firm, practice, doing M&A with a top tier Indian law firm, and then moving International, working with a top tier international law firm, and then to in house, which we'll discuss in a while. So I think that's the journey I've had.

Tyler Finn 

Tell me a little bit about the time working internationally, you know, working with an international firm, I think that's, that's interesting and somewhat unique.

Rohit Kumar 

It's, it's very unique, at least for, you know, I had a fantastic run, yeah, and it was not just the work we did, but the overall experience of working in an international form for somebody like me. I mean, there are very few Indian lawyers who have not had an international degree, and, you know, ended up working with, got an opportunity to work with international firms. So I was very fortunate, very lucky. You end up doing some fascinating work across jurisdictional and working with some great lawyers, and, you know, great teams, which I think, and the scale of, you know, just and I think when I went there, the Indian law firms were much smaller. You know, the biggest firm probably would have 200 – 250 lawyers and the firm I worked with I was in the Melbourne office of hover Smith, free hills, and just in that office, we had 800 people.

Tyler Finn  

Oh, wow.

Rohit Kumar 

So just the scale was very, very different.

Tyler Finn  

Yeah, I think that you know your path at that point is not so dissimilar from what I've talked to a lot of folks in the US about, which is we have this term big law right? Like you're at a corporate law firm, the hours are very long, and at some point you decide that you want to go in house, and people have different motivations for that? Was there a specific moment, or what drew you to the realization that maybe moving in house was the right next step for you?

Rohit Kumar  

I think it was a couple of them. I've always been a big fan of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett and, You know, I remember around 2008-2009 I was reading this book called Damn right, which is a biography on Munga. And as you might know, Munger was also a lawyer. Initially started with a law firm, and that law firm still exists with his name in West Coast. So I think one of the things he often talked about is his ability to control his time and living your life billing your time to a client. And you know, that's struck me as well, that look, I don't want to be, you know, leading my life where I'm billing every six minutes.

Tyler Finn                                                                                                             

Yeah

Rohit Kumar 

and so that was one, I think the other pivot was, I think when I was with HSF, I remember working with a very, very senior partner, and it was the time between Christmas and New Year, and he had plans to go, go for a ski vacation with his family, and he had to cancel that trippy, and he was, he was a bit upset, because the client wanted us to close a deal between Christmas and New Year, and he was bit upset. And he was, he was sharing that with me, and I realized that, look, he is probably the most successful lawyer I know, a corporate lawyer I know, and if he can't control time, at this phase of his career, I think it's, you know, you'll probably never be and I think that was those two kind of coincided, and I ended up taking a decision of moving in house.

Tyler Finn 

What was this sort of adjustment to the in house culture like? Because I think, you know, sort of culturally in house legal work different, not just because you maybe you're on your own schedule, but you need to enable the business to take risks in ways that you may not be as comfortable with when you're outside counsel. We'll talk in a second about you need to leverage technology in ways that law firms may not feel the pressure to do. What was that shift like for you?

Rohit Kumar  

So I think, look, I've always been good with dealing with people. I think the biggest difference, I felt there were two main difference. I think when you work in a law firm, you are the revenue generating person, so the firm revolves around you, whereas when you join in house, you are a support function. You may be an important support function, but you are still a support function. The business makes money, and you are kind of protecting the business, and, you know, in all ethical and compliant manner so that, and you know, the business continues to grow. So I think that was one change I could feel. And I think the other one is very little is experienced or learned about stakeholder management when you work in a law firm, whereas when you join a company, then you realize that, look, there are different power centers or different stakeholders who are important to be convinced about issues and is important to have your channel of communication open with all of them. And, you know, come talk to them often, to come up with a solution, to know whatever problems you're facing. And I think that's one big mind shift I had between working private, doing private practice, versus moving to a house.

Tyler Finn  

And I think management as well, right? There are some, I think, law firm partners who are great at managing associates and great at helping build a culture for a firm. There are also a lot of places where you can be a partner, and because of the ability to generate revenue which you're referencing, you can be a terrible manager, and you can be a star performer and sort of one of the top lawyers. You start to, you know, grow in your career. In house, you have to pick up a lot of management skills as well. And, you know, understand that bringing people along with you or empowering them to accomplish things may be far more important than what you do. How did you adapt to that?

Rohit Kumar  

So look, as I said, I have always been good with people, yeah, thankfully. And my view is that sometimes it's easy to get these things done if it comes naturally to you. So I could, I was not a very detailed person who would want to control everything coming out of the team so very empowering the right team, hiring the right people. So I think methodically, over a period of time, we built up that system where we ended up hiring some very, very top class people, empowering them, making sure that they get the right training and then enable them to take decisions for the for the company, and you know, of course, within the confines of whatever could be done. So I think that helped, helped me a lot.

Tyler Finn  

You spent a lot of a lot of time in house at a large agricultural solutions conglomerate company, UPL. Remind me the numbers like when you joined one and a half billion in revenue and north of 5 billion when you left, or something like that. Is that correct?

Rohit Kumar  

It was just under a billion dollars when I joined in 2010 versus just over five when I left. Yeah,

Tyler Finn  

not all my guests bring up technology, or say they want to talk about technology, but you did. You mentioned that you felt like you were an early adopter of tech in legal. Can you share more about what drew you to leverage technology and what made you excited about doing it?

Rohit Kumar 

Sure. So then I've spent, as I said, quite a few years, or in an initial part of my year working with law firms, and I saw how technology brought efficiency and productivity in law firms, in that setting, in both in India and when I went to, went international, working for so I could understand that technology is the enabler. Can bring efficiency, can bring accountability. When I came in house, you know, I sorry. I think I should also emphasize that I've always been somebody who has had mid to long term views on things, sure, you know, not just short term, not just tomorrow, day after next month. And I think that that and that adds to the fact that, and add to the fact that you know, you believe that you know, a small competitive advantage which you get over a period of time, can, you know, make it a differentiator, as far as you know efficiency is concerned. So I think that is what helped me know, adopt technology early. I remember in 2011-2012 when we were looking at compliance at the company I worked for then UPL, it was just, if not impossible, extremely difficult, to map all the compliances for, you know, different tasks in India, just thousands of them. And, you know, this is pre Gen AI era, yeah, but we did have solutions where you could go and adopt, or, you know, take a technology and, you know, ensure implement and ensure that you become largely, if not 100% close to 100% compliant, and which you could only do with, you know, with the help of technology or not otherwise. I think that's the reason I say, I think one of the very early adopters of technology, as far as India is concerned, for in house. And I think the other was, I've also been lucky. Think I was lucky. I worked with the management team, which was open to investing in technology. I didn't have a lot of budget issues. As long as I was reasonable, I could communicate clearly the advantages, you know, introducing that technology would bring. I was, you know, the company was okay for me to experiment. And, you know, see if it works. And you know, more often than not it worked,

Tyler Finn  

Yeah,you know, one of the things that you mentioned when you were at UPL was you were very hands on and implementing a CLM, I'd love to hear more about how you think legal tech helps prepare teams to scale, or helps them prepare for the sort of growth that you experienced while you were at UPL,

Rohit Kumar  

Okay, that's a good question. So then I think without technology, or without a platform like a CLM, it's very, very difficult to have one team or people end up working in silos. I had that situation where I would not have visibility on, you know, what the teams in, for example, North America is doing, what the team in South America is doing, and how, how the contracts are getting not I think negotiation is one part, but how the contracts, the transactions, are getting, approved By the right stakeholder, and not necessarily the legal team. I think legal team comes second. The first is that a particular transaction is is approved, the commercial risk which is being taken is approved. And there was no just there's just no other way to do it. And one of the reason for implementing the CLM was that we would be able to have bring uniformity within the group and how the contracts are getting executed, how the contracts are getting approved, and how we create the right risk matrix with respect to who gets to approve What I'm not, I'm not talking about the legal, sure, but the commercial part of various risk you take in a transaction, who gets to approve what and do it enough, you know, make a checker concept where the person who's approving is not the person who's requesting. So I think that that could, that could only be brought in with, you know, a platform like a CLL,

Tyler Finn  

I think, you know, legal Tech has also been very important as the world has shifted to a more remote environment. And obviously in 2020 and when covid hit India as well as the rest of the world, that sort of shift to remote was not optional, right? We may see changes now, but at that point in time, everybody had to go home. How do you feel like tech and legal tech helped you manage your team, keep your culture strong during that sort of time of a lot of uncertainty and change?

Rohit Kumar  

Sure, I think Tyler, unlike in the West, and particularly in the US, where work from home was global, you know, at least people understood what it was sure. I think, other than the Bangalore tech world, work from home was not understood in India at all. I work for a traditional manufacturing company in Mumbai and Mumbai, you know, I wouldn't know anybody who worked only from home, other than some people in the tech roles. So I think for us, it was, you know, we were lucky. We had implemented CLM, not globally, but almost we covered 70 or 60 to 70% of geography with CLM just before the covid hit, right? And, you know, I was pushing the team hard for adoption. And it's not easy, and it's, you know, as you would know, CLM is not just about managing the legal team or convincing the legal team to use it. I would have instances where you know a senior business person is not ready to approve something on, on the system, because, you know, whatever you know, he's never approved it and on the system, and probably for not having accountability, he would be happy not to do it through the system. So, so I think we were, we were lucky. We we implemented it in 19. But what happened with, you know, early 2020, when pandemic hit, we were kind of juggling on how to how to start working seamlessly, how to make sure that the team continues to function. And I think that timing was so it was so we were so lucky with that timing that, you know, the adoption kind of skyrocketed, you know, yeah, we had the system. We were not using it. For example, people were used to doing signature manually, you know, manually, yeah, the office, the EA will, you know, scan it and then send it PDF, send it to the counterparty. The counterparty was, you know, sign it and send back. These systems were available. CLM did have that system, but no. People didn't experiment it, or people didn't want to use it for whatever reason. But with covid and work from home, the adoption, you know, became lot more easier. It just accelerated everything. And I think the other thing was, I was also lucky to the IT infrastructure was therefore to support work from home. Yes, we, I remember we, I think we have been using our we were using our teams since 2018 I guess, to 17 or 18 and but the adoption was not very high. We would still have landlines, yeah, and, and all our offices are connected through that landline globally. So we would just call the landline rather than, you know, using teams to call, right? But you know, in fifth covid and with work from home, we realized that it was lot more easy to connect with your colleague through teams, and you actually don't need a landline at all, mobile at all to talk to somebody. So I think that the adoption of teams also improved. And I think with teams, adoption and the CLM functioning, our life became lot more easier for the legal team.

Tyler Finn  

It's funny to think back to those days. I remember, you know, you'd go in and you'd call your lawyer or whatever from one of the conference lines in the conference table, you'd get into the office super early, to talk to somebodyin Europe and instead of just taking it from home, it was a very different environment.

Rohit Kumar  

I mean, I'm I work for a tech company and one of the things I found surprising, there was no landline here. Nobody has a landline. And I was where is my phone. And then I saw that nobody has a phone.

Tyler Finn  

Yeah, that's a good segue. I mean, you've transitioned from large, more traditional enterprises, conglomerates, to you know, you spend time recently, about a year and a half, leading legal for a founder led tech company, one of India's fastest growing tech companies. How did you navigate that? That sort of transition?

Rohit Kumar  

look, I joined Ola with my eyes open. I knew that I worked, my experience was primarily with assorted established Indian company, versus now, working for then working for Ola, which was a founder led, very high energy, high Passion environment. But I think it was still challenging. As you rightly said, Tyler, it was not easy. No, walking at a tech company is a different ball game than working in established company. And you know it's, I think it's, you probably have heard it. Many people talk about it, but it's, just amazing how much speed jumps over perfection. It's execution that matters. You have to execute, execute, execute. And there's just a lot of pressure around getting things done. And I think in a more traditional company, you have different interest groups. In a company where you know, if a decision is taken, you can question, you can, you know, you can get heard, you can, you know, try changing the narrative around it, etc. But in a founder led company is very, very as you rightly said, it's a founder led so once that vision is very clear that you have to do it, you have to execute it. I think you have to just find out ways to execute that, and, you know, get it done, but with minimum amount of risk for the company.

Tyler Finn  

What were the sort of skill sets that you felt like you drew on, or, you know, mindset they drew on to adapt to that environment and to motivate your team and to feel like you were performing at a really high level in an organization like that.

Rohit Kumar  

I think one is you have to be nimble. You have to be flexible in your in your thought process, and I think your appetite to take risk in a tech company, in a founder led tech company, early growth company is much higher. I mean, I'm talking not for lawyer, but for the organization, and because the growth, growth of the company always trumps over the other what matters to the company is how fast it can execute and grow just because the amount of competition it has. So I think that that mindset was a major difference between the previous company and the tech company I worked with

Tyler Finn  

when you joined the team was pretty small. You were able to scale the team to 40 plus folks, you know, what were some of the early growing pains there, maybe. Or, how did you navigate that? How did you navigate growing the growing the legal org?

Rohit Kumar  

I think that I mentioned, I gave that example of, you know, somebody trying to do an Indian lawyer, a team, a member of my team, sitting in Mumbai trying to do something in Brazil. Yeah, and, you know, it's not the most efficient way to do it. Yeah. No one your language capabilities is is restricted because, you know, people in Brazil talk Portuguese and the law in For example, in Brazil is very clear, if you can go and tell a court that, look, I've signed an English language contract, yeah, I signed it, but I didn't understand when I signed, because I'm a native Portuguese speaker, you can actually get out of, you know, most of these contracts, particularly where external lawyers are not involved and so so, I think those were the initial challenges which we had, having a very small team managing a global business where, you know, 80- 85% of his business came from outside of India. Managing it out of a small team based out of Mumbai was a challenge. And having also no technology, or less technology, then it should also made it a little bit more challenging. But we outgrow this. The team grew. We implemented tech solutions, not just on the contracting part, but various other things which we did, which improved efficiency significantly, and we also ended up,you know increasing the team.

Tyler Finn  

As you take on these sorts of GC roles, I'm also curious how, how your mindset around leadership has shifted maybe,  you know, how do you like your responsibilities change, and the sort of mission, like the things that you have to let go of, and the things that you have to pick up and really start to invest in. How has that changed as you've taken on GC roles, both at UPL and at Ola?

Rohit Kumar  

Yeah, I think one change that happens is you start spending less and less time on the day-to-day operations or day to day routine matters, you end up spending more time on mentoring. You end up spending more time, you know, talking to your stakeholders. You end up spending more time on, you know, if there are issues on, you know, larger deals which requires audience, or certain kind of audience, certain kind of resolutions, I think you end up spending more time there. You end up spending more time on compliance, making sure the company is an overall compliant with the laws, which, which, which have impacted. So I think those are, you know, the things, which which matter and which is important.

Tyler Finn  

If you think about how you need to evolve in a GC role as a lawyer and a leader, imagine you have to get some key hires around you right. What do you think those key hires are, and how do you get those key hires right to support you and empower you?

Rohit Kumar  

Look, I think that's one of the most important function, or the role of a GC, to make sure that you end up hiring the right set of people. I would think, No, I won't go and name the roles, but it's important that you have the right level of experience in the team and and also, I think what I saw or what I did when we moved from being, say, an under billion dollar company to, you know, whatever, five, you know, 10x that is to create more specialized roles. You know, people were more generalist to start with nature, but we ended up having teams and people who were more more specialized. So you'll have, for example, you know, who do other things also, but no specialize, as I say, a compliance set. You know, you know, somebody who's who understands sanctions very well, sure, somebody who understands FCPA very well, somebody who understands licensing well, and give them the right training. I mean, of course, first is you hire the right people, but also give them the right training. Give them the right expertise so that they can grow and do well in that role.

Tyler Finn  

Maybe a last question, sort of on, on leadership. You know, I think GCS play an important role in helping set company culture. And as you've been at these organizations that have scaled and grown, you know, how did you sort of protect, or maybe help company culture evolve in important ways as the company grew and the people changed.

Rohit Kumar  

I think, look, culture is always top down as my experience, and I think I've seen, I've worked in not two organizations which are very different in culture, the role I had at Ola versus the role I had at UPL. And I think one of the things I did was that, look, let's create your own island. Let's create I'm the head of department for the legal function. I'm the one where the legal team spends time and energy and my my objective has always been, is to create a very conducive, harmonious and no work culture where people love coming to office. And one of the things I did, and I think that's where technology also helped me, is, is where and I kept every told everybody in my team that, look, we all have to go up the value chain. Let's get out of the mundane work we do every day. Let's, you know, let's make a process like, let's implement technology so that we don't have to do the routine, regular work. Let's go up the value chain. And I think, you know, ended up doing people were happy, yeah, people ended up doing more critical roles where they had to think rather than, you know, just do something which is very routinely required. Yeah, so that was one, and I think the other one was, you know, giving them more exposure to know the broader company, key stakeholders, and making sure that, you know, look, this is what the culture of the company is, just, you know. Let's just, you know, understand that, and you know, if you have, you know. And so I think let me also take a step backward. I think one of the important way to align the culture is also to be careful with your hires. Yes, like in my previous company, I won't hire people who were overly aggressive, yeah, because that didn't fit the company culture. Hire people who were composed. You know, happy to work with. You know, people find pleasure, yeah, you know, happy to in a team work. Yeah. So I think those were the things I would I would think I would keep my sight on

Tyler Finn  

Having that sort of good culture isn't always easy when you're managing things that are very high stakes. I want to ask you about a couple of those moments that you've been through. You shared with me that you've done a sort of a number of litigations outside of India, including in the US, maybe briefly, just, you know, share a couple of those, those stories, and then I've got a couple more questions for you around them, and lessons that other people could take away.

Rohit Kumar  

Good question. Thank you. So I think one is a more recent litigation, which I did at Ola, a class action litigation in the UK, where the driver partners of Ola. So Ola operated in the UK until around a year back, and there was a class action litigation against the company where the driver partners of Ola alleged or claimed that they have an employer employee relationship, and therefore they entitled to minimum wages, holiday pay, etc. Of course, the business did not work on those parameters. And you know, if things all public knowledge, Uber ended up losing that case, volte ended up losing that case. We had a much smaller market share, but it was an easy litigation for the driver partners to win, and they went after us. There was a very, very US style, Class Action. There was a you know a plaintiff law firm, which was kind of leading the church, and with the revenue, whatever outcome driven, engagement with the drivers. And I think that was very interesting when I took over the organization spending a lot of money on legal fees, sure, and I could help the company get a pretty well or very good settlement out of that litigation just before we went for trial. And I think one of my I think advantage which I bring to the table is also to look at the big picture. When I was looking at that litigation, the phase one of the trial was about to start, and everybody just looked at that phase one that okay, we are going to lose. Uber has lost, Bolt has lost. Just a question of, you know, you're wasting not 10 days of court work. And, you know, legal fees, and, yeah, and these are expensive litigations. I mean, the discovery was very, very contentious and very, you know, I was just surprised how US style it has become in the UK. But I think one day I was just thinking, you know, sitting and thinking that, what is it we can do? Definitely, and I started thinking about phase two of the litigation, which is not whether the employer employee relationship exists, but whether we have given minimum wages or not. And actually went through one day. I was just sitting, I'm not very good with Excel. Yeah, myself. And you know, I think that's one of the but I called one of my team member, you know, not a lawyer, but, you know, was very, very good at Excel. Yeah, I had this whole data sheet of, you know, the drivers looking at, you know, their earnings and how much they wrote, how much they were on the on the app, etc, in the UK. And then realized that, look, almost everybody has earned more than, you know, minimum wages. Not every almost nine, close to 100% were earning more than minimum wages. So I went back and said, Look, what is it are you fighting? I mean, even if we lose, right? Just this is what it is. And nobody had thought about it. I think everybody just focused on phase one. Yeah, that changed the whole narrative around settlement. So they were coming forward for settlement before, but I think after this discussion, I think the whole narrative on settlement changed and they became lot more amenable to much smaller number on settling the litigation, and we helped settle it.

Tyler Finn  

So I mean, that's a pretty interesting case to also bring to your executive team, or to the founder of the business or the board about why you should settle. Talk to us a little bit about the role of the GC in in counseling the exec team on trade offs around something like this, and how you make the case basically.

Rohit Kumar  

Look I think I alluded to the fact that one of the things I or one person I really admire in my career is Charlie Munger, and he as a lawyer. I think somewhere I remember he's saying that, look, if you have to communicate as a lawyer, on on on a legal issue. Don't just tell them what the non compliance would cost them across the business, but actually give them a live, live example, and more often than not, give an aggregate aggravated or exaggerated perspective of what could happen, yeah, what worse could happen. And I think that that played that over a period of time, several times, even in this existing matter. I think this was a fairly easy convincing because, just because the sheer amount of money we were spending on, you know, fighting this litigation, the trial, upcoming trial in London, and the need to fly people from India to be key witnesses, and the cost saving, you know, the numbers so the negotiation happened over a period of time, over a couple of weeks, and and the more I could tell my own executive team and founder that, look, it does not make sense to fight, because if you, even if you fight, your legal cost itself on on Phase one is going to be probably higher than the settlement amount and and also the bad press is going to get, you know, once you lose the case, sure. And I think the other important point was, you know, in a class action, the class is always open, you know, right? Class doesn't close. And the more people hear about an outcome which kind of favors, in this case, the driver partner, the more would come together, the common claim, and the pot will increase. So it would just it was a very easy advice and easy convincing, and I'm thankful to the founder and the executive team to have understood that and agreed to the settlement.

Tyler Finn  

One other area that you've been working on that I think is interesting. We're not going to break news on this, but that's in the news is two-wheeler taxis. I mean, I've experienced Bangalore traffic, both this time and the previous three times that I've been here, two-wheeler taxis in Bangalore have faced regulatory pushback. What's what's going on with something like this? It actually doesn't seem all that dissimilar from the early debates around Uber and Lyft in the United States, and sort of like taxi companies versus ride share. Tell us a little bit more about what's happening?

Rohit Kumar  

Sure. So look, two wheelers were operating as taxis in India, in Bangalore, in Karnataka, until 15th of June, and it was operating under a court order. And I don't want to get into too much of detail on the law, but the in India, all the aggregators, the parent legislation with the which of the federal legislation is, is an act called Motor Vehicle act. Okay, so the motor vehicle Act applies to all of India. It actually allows two-wheeler taxes to operate. The law says that it can operate subject to regulation or regulation by the state. Now, the second position is that not the state can put conditions on the operations of two wheelers, sure, but cannot stop it. They don't have the because the legislation has already allowed. It's a preemption question, basically, yeah, but the state has its own reason for not allowing, and particularly in Bangalore, and there are a few reasons, but I think one important reason for them not allowing is it's a democracy. Have very, very strong interest groups and the three-wheeler. The unions here are very strong in Bangalore, and there so the family, the three-wheeler family, is close to five to six lakh. There are one lakh, 50,000 150,000 sorry auto permits in Bangalore and so. And if you add that in the family into four, that's the amount of vote bank you have, right? And you displease this group of people by allowing two wheelers, because that puts pressure on the three-wheeler for sure, bad or good, good or bad reason, sure. And so the the three wheeler unions never won the two wheeler taxis to comply to to play in Bangalore. So there's actually no no ban, except for statement made by the state in the High Court saying that they will not allow two wheelers to run and operate as taxis in in Bangalore. They haven't come up with a paper, they have come and come up with a law which prohibits it, because they cannot, but, but, you know, because of this very interesting incentive system, it's not getting allowed.

Tyler Finn  

I had the the president and GC, first GC of lift on the podcast, and we talked a little bit about, I think, a similar situation, in some ways, in California and in New York. And what's the role of the GC, in your mind, in counseling an executive team around a scenario like this or a situation like this, what are the different factors that you want them to, sort of like, understand.

Rohit Kumar  

I think I would tell them both the legal principle on where we stand and and where the aggregators stand. It's not just in, for example, in my case, not just the OLA case, right? It is also an Uber issue. It's also a rapido issue. It's all it's also an issue by of most of the aggregators on primary three. So, you know, make them understand the legal issue. Make them understand the practical reasons why it's not getting allowed. And you know, the different pressure points on what works, what not make them understand about the collaboration. There is some sort of a soft collaboration between different aggregators, because their objective is the same, sure that it should be allowed, and make them understand that, and also make them understand the limitations of the Indian court system. Because, you know, sometimes they think that, look, if the law is so clear, then why? Why should it not be allowed? Right? And we have been all banging our heads on it that look, we have been trying, we were actually trying very hard for the to convince the court to give us interim protection and allow us to operate, but the court, for one reason or the other, doesn't want to have any interim orders, so I think make them understand that as well. And yeah, I think those were the, those are the things which I would do

Tyler Finn  

As we start to wrap up, I'm asking all of my guests, and I think you will have some great ideas around this, given your interest in legal tech, propensity for adopting legal tech. I'm asking all my guests about some recent findings in a report you put out our 2025 contracting efficiency benchmarking report. You know one thing, we surveyed legal teams, we found that while a lot of folks are aiming for automation, about 15% of teams out there are still just feeling like they're very reactive. They're not able to be proactive around contracting, and they feel like technology hasn't, hasn't manifested itself, or hasn't enabled the change that they wish to see. What do you think the blocker for these teams might be around getting to where they want to be with technology, right? If it's not the tech itself, what can they do to leverage technology better?

Rohit Kumar  

I think the report talks about CLM, if I'm not, it does, yes. And I think there are, I, in my experience, there are three or four things which have, which which could be a blocker. One is just the law of inertia, yeah, just used to doing something in a manner, and you don't want to make that change, so somebody needs to push that look change. So that's one. The second is also, and I think it kind of interlinks with inertia is accountability, you know? Yeah. I mean, I have experienced that and when, but when I was implementing it in my previous organization, there were sections of businesses where they were not happy implementing a CLM. And the reason was that, you know, people are used to doing things in a certain way. Yes, I think CLM makes everything more comfortable. You know, if you approve, for example, an exclusivity for a product, and it's mapped in the it will get be mapped in CLM, and it goes to a particular stakeholder, and that person has approved it before. You know, legal signs of it often. You know, people, some people will not like it because, you know, they have never been held accountable in so transparent a manner as they would be one CLM is implemented. So I think this second, third, I think, is also budget. And I'm talking more maybe Indian context, getting the right management support, being able to articulate the need for, say, a tech solution to the management, to the CEO suite, and convincing them why that budget is important and actually essential, and how it helps saving cost is, is it would be important? I mean, I was just lucky, I think, to work with people who understood it, yes. Well, I think I'll give you a very simple example, Tyler, where we could, you know, very simple things we would struggle. For example, getting executed contracts back with legal development department. We had one person who would just chase everybody to get that final signed contract in the system. And it was just so difficult because, you know, it's all on email that somebody has scanned and signed scan sent. No, I was just sitting with the tech team and said, Look, how do we solve it? Despite have putting so much of effort to be unable to do it, there has to be a better way to do it. And we just integrated one of the digital signature platforms into the CLM, and instruction went out that now every signature will be through the system, and that problem vanished overnight. And I think those are the communications we have to go and tell your C suite people, and it's good about that. Look, this is the reason we need it, otherwise we are exposed and there’s risk.

Tyler Finn  

One more question for you around efficiency. You know, we found survey group that two thirds, basically 66% of teams are still taking longer than a week to close out their standard contracts. Right? Do you feel like this is a process problem in a lot of places? A tech problem for for driving efficiency in in contracting process,

Rohit Kumar  

I think it's, it's a simple if you take a week to know to sign and execute your standard contract, I think there is some, some gap in the system. People probably send emails and forget somebody you know, some sometimes the signatories are not available. I can't imagine that you having prolonged negotiations on your standard templates. More often than not, people would, kind of, you know, with little negotiation, be able to close the contract. I think that the intervention one should be able to resolve this and reduce the seven seven days dramatically to maybe a couple of days at best.

Tyler Finn  

I've got some closing questions that I've been asking all of my guests for a while. First one for you is there a piece of advice that you feel like it's really impactful or changed the course of your career, or a mentor that gave you that advice that was really important to you?

Rohit Kumar  

I think, I, I think the most important advice I, you know, I read, actually, from one of the very well known lawyers said once that spend more time thinking about a matter than reading it. And I think that did make, you know, some difference in, you know, in my output. I think all lawyers, including myself, you know, whenever you get a problem, you just start reading, and then you don't know, you read whatever you could. And, you know, try finding a solution to that problem, but you you don't spend enough time thinking about that problem. And I think that, you know, it's not easy. It sounds very easy. It's not easy. And I think some of it comes with experience, but your ability to sit down and think about solving a problem, even a legal problem, has tremendous benefit. And I've, you know, I've benefited tremendously with that's one advice which I which I read from a very senior tourist in India.

Tyler Finn  

That's great. Do you have a I guess, looking back on your last year and a half at Ola since now, you're going to be taking some time off, which will be well deserved, and the answer to this question may change. Do you have a favorite part of your day to day? Did you have a favorite part of your day to day at Ola?

Rohit Kumar  

I think my favorite part would be, you know, I think my team, I'm just, I was just very proud of my team. It's a very high, very efficient, high productivity team. And just be a pleasure, you know, talking to them, guiding them, at times, solving problems, going out for coffees and lunches together. We had this fantastic culture where we would all get our food together, sit at on one table, and, you know, share our lunch boxes and and have lunch. And I think, I know I miss those days where you sit with the team and, you know, have your lunches, you know, and talk about problems. And some, sometimes, you know, help solve a lot of these problems while having those lunches.

Tyler Finn  

Yeah, solutions can come in less formal settings, on a walk or a run or at lunch or I think this is kind of a fun question or a funny question. Do you have a professional pet peeve?

Rohit Kumar  

Oh, okay, I think there are many people coming and telling Oh, I needed yesterday, and they won't say this to me so many times, but my the legal team members would would often hear this that, look, this is very super important. This needs to be done tonight. And I kind of know that, you know, having spent time and you know, you know that, look, this is not as urgent. That's one of the, you know, things which always irritate me, that look, hang on, spend let give us some time to look at it. Look at it rather than rushing.

Tyler Finn 

Do you have a book that you would recommend to our listeners? And I mean, this could be professional book, or it could just be something you've read recently, or want to read that you think is interesting.

Rohit Kumar  

Look, I've been reading. I've always read a lot, and I don't necessarily mean legal books. As I said, I've been a biography nut, yeah, I would have read almost all the biographies which I would, you know, I could get my hands on. And you know, particularly the Americans, you know, they end up reading. And one of my favorite author is Walter Isaacson, sure, yeah, he has written some of these fabulous books on Elon Musk to Steve Jobs, yeah. Leonardo Caprio, sorry. Leonardo Dixon, yeah. Presently, I'm reading a very interesting book called singularities mirror. And it's a book on Chennai, and it talks about how, AI is going to rule the world and how transformational it is. But on the positive side, I think you hear about the more doomsday scenario for, you know, employment, etc, yeah, with the progress of Gen AI. But, you know, he kind of argues that, look like in the early, you know, 20th century, or the mid 20th century, mid 20 sorry, 1950s etc, an ATM SC and the tellers were out of job for some time. And everybody predicted that. Look, it's going to very difficult for people to get jobs. But the jobs transform. The nature of jobs change. But actually, as more opportunities came, so he, you know, he is one of the leading guy this book, I think is Ray Kurzweil correct. And he predicts that, you know, by nine to 2047 you know, the neural linkage. You know, he says you Jenny is going to merge with human mind, and your human mind will become exponentially more powerful, maybe 1000 times, maybe a million times. It's just no limit. So it's just, you know, I've been reading about it. Just fascinated by and because it's on the positive side and, yeah, negative side. And I just very interesting. And I think I would, I would think it very interesting for anybody to read that, that book, to pick that one up.

Tyler Finn  

My last question for you, question, I close all my episodes with, it's if you could look back on your days as a young lawyer, maybe at the firm just getting started. One thing you know now that you wish that you'd known back then,

Rohit Kumar  

I think that would be I didn't know how important maths is. And with maths, I mean, you know, accounts and how balance sheets work and how accounting entries work. And I wish I had known when I was in college. I'm reasonably I'm better than most lawyers on numbers. But when I sit in a, you know, in a room where there are charter accountants and CPAs and finance guys, they always outsmart, you know, lawyers. And I wish I knew nomads and algebra and, you know, accounting as much as good as them. And you know that, I think that would have made me a far better lawyer than what I am today.

Tyler Finn  

That's a good piece of advice. Understand the business's PNL and how to read a balance sheet.

Rohit, this has been a really fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for joining me.

Rohit Kumar

Thank you, Tyler, thank you for having me.

Tyler Finn 

And to all of our listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Abstract, and we hope to see you next time you