Mark Smolik – DHL Supply Chain Americas

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve paid for the same motion in similar matters in multiple venues,” Smolik says. “I don’t want to be paying for the same research, same motion, same set of interrogatories multiple times. By harnessing our data and organizing it in a user-friendly searchable format, we will drive efficiencies among our internal and external teams, saving time and money”.

Mark Smolik | DHL Supply Chain Americas | Chief Legal Officer

Then, there’s a legal intake tool for anyone anywhere in the business throughout the Americas to communicate with Smolik’s team. Should someone in the business want to phone or email a team member about a new or existing matter, they may do so. Still, Smolik emphasizes how streamlined the procedures can be for everyone when a request for help from Legal, with or without attachments, automatically arrives in legal and is promptly assigned to the team member best qualified to respond.

And if anyone has more ideas for harnessing AI, Smolik wants to hear them. According to him, brainstorming enhanced by technology is a winning combo.

“Everything starts with an idea,” says Smolik. “My approach is ‘imagine if.’ Imagine if there’s a process, procedure or tool to do things better, faster, cheaper. Admittedly, we are the legal department, but that does not keep us from continuously looking for ways to improve and help the company safeguard its assets,” Smolik adds.

While technology plays a vital role, Smolik understands that leadership is not solely reliant on tech advancements. He values soft skills such as mentoring and networking as essential to effective leadership. With low turnover among his team, Smolik takes pride in their accomplishments, noting how some have transitioned to leadership positions within other departments or companies.

High Performing Team

Smolik speaks highly of his “A Team,” consisting of nine senior leaders who are instrumental in the legal department’s success and enable the business to face challenges, reduce risk, and grow.

“I work with a team of high-performing professionals, all of whom are intimately aware of their important role in our organization and the value they bring. It is an absolute pleasure to work with each of them. In many ways, I feel like a manager standing in the dugout, knowing I’ve got the right players in the right position doing what they do best individually and as a team, servicing our business and each other. They make my job so much easier,” Smolik says.

All nine of his senior leaders work with dozens of others on the team to ensure Smolik is prepped for his next monthly business review and board meeting. With much progress to report on the AI front, he’s confident the C-Suite will be smiling. It’s all part of Smolik’s role at DHL Supply Chain Americas. He joined DHL in April 2009 after previous in-house positions with Safelite AutoGlass and The Sherwin-Williams Co.

Beyond the technological initiatives and ensuring he has a best-in-class team, Smolik quickly acknowledges that he and his team cannot be successful alone. He spends much time building relationships with key strategic partners and external counsel. To support the Regulatory Function within Smolik’s legal department, his team relies on IQVIA, the go-to experts on licensing requirements that are considered an extension of his in-house team day in and day out. In addition, Smolik acknowledges the invaluable support from Thompson Hine and Fisher Phillips as trusted external counsel. Their collaboration has contributed to effectively managing legal matters, further optimizing costs and mitigating risks. Both Thompson Hine and Fisher Philips are partnering with DHL to build the previously mentioned AI-enabled platform and are always willing to collaborate and ensure DHL has the support needed to address critical legal issues facing the organization.

Containing Costs

In addition to overseeing legal, Smolik’s tasked with managing external counsel, but at a company this size, there’ll always be litigation stemming from a disgruntled employee, unreliable vendor, class-action or whatever. When he joined DHL, the company spent over $11 million from outsourcing litigation and legal work in the United States. Now he says the billing on day-to-day matters is less than $5 million across the Americas, something he attributes to the support he has consistently received from his CFOs through insourcing work and partnering with the business to mitigate risk and liabilities.  And now, leveraging technology and data, Smolik sees an even greater opportunity to lower those costs while further mitigating related risks. The GenAI solution to draft responses to employment claims will save over $1M annually!

“In our department, we have volumes of historical data covering every aspect of our business,” Smolik says. “Every bit of that data tells a story about a claim, a lawsuit, a contract, an opportunity and the operations of our department. By itself, it does little but take up space in our systems. “Mined” helps us understand trends and inherent risks in our business and enables us to evaluate opportunities to further mitigate them.”

Because Smolik has such a high-performing team and trusted external partners and counsel, he has the time to better enjoy his family, which includes his wife Linda and two achieving sons — Jim, a lawyer working for Ice Miller, his daughter-in-law  Alexandra, an endodontist and Matthew, an engineer at Safran and his wife Madeline, an accountant—along with two granddaughters. He’s an avid boater and a master carpenter.

“I love woodworking,” he says. “It allows me to use the creative and artistic half of my brain. I get to express myself in another way.”

However, the other half of his brain remains in high demand at DHL, where Smolik is called upon to express himself on the legal, business, and regulatory fronts. Such are the responsibilities of an in-house legal leader for a multinational company, and he needs no motivation. “Working with this team is motivation enough,” Smolik says.