Janet founded Cognia to integrate how legal services are provided by bringing creativity, trust and sustainable outcomes. Over the last ten years she has built a diverse talented team delivering efficient digitized managed legal services to clients.
Janet leads the organization in listening to clients, adapting models to meet their needs and collaborating with partners to provide high quality solutions to banks, global corporations and law firms. Building on her varied, international experience developed at EY, Clifford Chance and Integreon, she is a hands-on operator who brings her informed business acumen to work with clients in designing solutions to their challenges. This is made possible by Janet’s commitment since Cognia’s launch to building diverse teams that thrive and give clients access to the best talent. As a result, Cognia has been recognised across the industry, most recently being shortlisted by the FT Innovative Lawyers for the 2022 Leading Integrated Solution Provider award.
At Clifford Chance, Janet worked as a member of the Global Operations Group whose mandate included leading a change agenda supporting Clifford Chance's efficiency and growth strategy. This included the setup of the firm's 380-person shared service centre in Delhi, India. In addition, she developed the firm's legal efficiency strategy and initiated a programme focused on improving the quality, profitability and efficiency of Clifford Chance's legal services. Specifically, the programme leveraged the principles of Lean Six Sigma and project management into the delivery of legal services. At Integreon, Janet was the Global Head of Legal Process Outsourcing which included business unit leadership and delivery of services leveraging teams based in India, Philippines, onshore UK and the US. Working with clients at Cognia and bringing her knowledge from previous roles, Janet has developed an in-depth understanding of the providers in the legal sector and alternative models for the delivery of services to in-house legal teams through both captive and outsourced arrangements.
Janet regularly speaks on innovation in the legal sector and shares her insights in articles including a series on how agile legal teams can accelerate business. She also contributed a thought -provoking piece on the future of legal talent for the Modern Lawyer. Janet was recognised in the World Commerce & Contracting’s 2023 list of Inspiring Women and in 2020 was a winner of the European Women of Legal Tech Awards. Janet continues to promote the role of integrated legal service providers globally, as a member of the Business Process Enabling South Africa (BPeSA) Executive Committee. In this role, she leads the focus on differentiating professional and shared services offshore companies’ offerings to clients.