In the IHL seat
Next up in the IHL seat, we introduce Kate Standring. Kate is Head of Legal at Swissport, the Swiss aviation services company providing airport ground and cargo handling services and lounge hospitality. We learn more about Kate’s career journey, her fleeting visit to private practice and how she got the aviation bug!
We asked Kate to start by explaining her journey to the Head of Legal position with Swissport.
Kate: I have been in house for basically all of my career. I did initially take a paralegal role in private practice which was a permanent secondment to one of their largest clients. I fell into being in-house by accident but loved it and the proximity that gave you to the client. It’s great seeing your advice being implemented by the business.
I did a two-week secondment in private practice as part of my training contract at Tyco International. I worked my way up there, developed my career, honed my experience and developed a training contract process which was rewarding. Since then, I have had roles at Milliken as sole legal counsel, and then at CHC Helicopter which was my first stint into the aviation sector. I had a slight detour in my next role at Croda, back into a chemical manufacturing business, before returning to aviation at Swissport. There is something about being in aviation that is easy to get the bug for!
We asked the most difficult but easily answered question of what a typical day in the life of an in-house lawyer at Swissport looks like. Easily answered because of course, there is no typical day, but harder to actually try and answer…
Kate: Your to do list is often the same at the end of the week as it is at the start. It is a fast paced and agile team, and I love that. We have a lot of queries from the commercial contracts and property teams and will often be called on by our ‘internal clients’ who will expect a quick answer. There are high expectations on the whole legal team regardless of seniority to be able to provide quick answers, so I also empower the whole team to be able to deal with that.
We asked Kate if her role involved any travel given the nature of Swissport’s business. Kate shared that Swissport’s HQ is in Switzerland and part of the global legal team are based in Madrid, and. So, whilst she has travelled there, the role usually directs her to the UK airports and her senior leadership meetings often take her down to the glamorous Luton.
Sticking with travel and the consequential environmental impacts, we asked how much ESG (and associated regulation and litigation) impacts the outlook and direction of an aviation business.
Kate: ESG is certainly a prevalent theme across the direction and strategy of the business. Sustainability is at the heart of Swissport’s strategy, and we are leaders in our sector. Swissport has retained its EcoVadis Platinum medal for the second consecutive year, reinforcing its position as the only aviation services provider worldwide to achieve this prestigious sustainability recognition. This distinction places us among the top 1% of companies assessed globally across all industry sectors in critical areas such as Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement. Swissport hasn’t been involved in any contentious work in this area. We have been involved in initiatives such as changing ground support equipment to electrified equipment. We have sustainable procurement initiatives and ensure that we act in accordance with all local regulations and the highest standards globally. Safety is our number 1 priority and there is always what we call a ‘safety moment’ in each meeting which will often include ESG considerations.
We discussed that different local regulations must be challenging to keep on top of. Kate shared that the regulated environment is certainly one of the biggest challenges in-house lawyers face in the aviation industry.
Kate: There are a lot of compliance requirements. There are three main parts to the Swissport business; ground handling, cargo and the executive lounges, and each have their own regulations that we have to operate within the confines of. There are then of course the employer’s liability and mandatory UK insurance policies that must also be managed relating to employees, ground support equipment and consumers.
In such a high-profile industry, we asked Kate how important external communications and the media are to her role.
Kate: We have a comms team that deals primarily with those issues. The legal team’s role works very closely with the comms team and my involvement will be from the perspective of protecting the legal position..
It is always fascinating hearing about career challenges but given Kate’s practice in the aviation industry and how to deal with crisis she spoke to us about a personal challenge faced during her career.
Kate: When I worked for the Helicopter company previously, one strand to the business was supporting the coast guard search and rescue. Just before I joined there was an accident in Ireland and sadly four crew members died. I was thrust into facilitating the Air Accident Investigation Unit and Irish Heath and Safety Authority investigation. There was a lot of media interest, so I worked closely with an external comms team to manage that, as well as appropriately supporting the grieving families and those who had lost colleagues internally. The biggest challenge was managing the various different workstreams in an intense situation and briefing the key stakeholders within the company. With a broad commercial background, a regulatory investigation was a steep learning curve and very difficult at the time, but with hindsight it certainly grew my confidence in being able to handle most things.
Kate has clearly enjoyed a varied and successful career, but we wanted to know if there was anything else she would be doing if it wasn’t for the legal career.
Kate: When I was very young, I wanted to be a nurse. But really, since the age of 13 when I did a careers research project on barristers, I knew I wanted to be in law. My grandfather was also a lawyer so that piqued my interest.
Kate told us that through all the trials and tribulations that qualifying brings, she was too stubborn not to see it through, and since then, she hasn’t looked back.
Our routine final question for Kate was what the Swissport legal team “ring walk” song would be. Kate presented us with a remix that I think we all need to hear.
Kate: I have been with Swissport for two years and we have quite a new team. That has required resilience, so my first thought was the iconic Survivor song, Eye of the Tiger. However, the team that we have created across those two years is very much about ensuring the business feels supported and the legal team are accessible and present. So, to that end it would need to be a remix with Bill Withers, Lean on Me.
We thoroughly enjoyed learning more about Kate and Swissport, and we hope you have too. We thank Kate for her time and wish her and the team at Swissport continued success.
Kate Standring
Head of Legal at Swissport GB Limited
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