The Contract Heroes Podcast​

Join Pepe Toriello and Marc Doucette as they engage in insightful conversations with seasoned contract management experts. Each episode offers a fresh perspective on how organizations of all kinds can reap the rewards of cultivating stronger commercial relationships with vendors and customers through the implementation of robust contracting software and processes.

38% of CLM tech implementation fail

We're here to make sure that doesn't happen to you.

LEGAL OPS BEST PRACTICES

IMPLEMENTATION PITFALLS TO AVOID

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES IMPACT ON CONTRACTS

HOW TO EVALUATE CLM VENDORS

Sep 20, 2023

Beyond the Paper Trail: Alistair Maiden's Quest for Contract Efficiency

The importance of moving contract management from a paper-based, manual process to a more efficient, automated one is clearer than ever in our digital age. Join us on this enlightening journey as we explore the intricate and often treacherous path of digitizing contract management, uncovering the key milestones, hurdles, and rewards that lie ahead. In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we are thrilled to be joined by Alistair Maiden. Alistair is the founder and CEO of SYKE, a legal engineering business. SYKE helps businesses and law firms to procure and use technology to solve legal problems. During our conversation, Alistair shares his experience with contract management and how he developed a user-friendly solution to streamline the process. He emphasizes the importance of investing in contract automation software and involving experienced professionals for successful implementation. Our conversation also touches on the pitfalls of focusing solely on the product and vendor, the complexity of implementation, and the need for transparency and realistic expectations. Alistair discusses the future of the industry, and the potential disruption of AI in legal advisory services, and invites listeners to learn more about SYKE.

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Sep 11, 2023

The Art of Contract Management at CLM Simplified Academy 2023

Today, one element that should never be overlooked in any organization is contract management. Imagine a well-oiled machine, where every gear perfectly interlocks to form a seamless symphony of productivity. That's the magic of effective contract management. It harmonizes every operation, streamlining processes, and eliminating unnecessary bottlenecks. By getting it right, your organization can gain an unmistakable advantage in the market, outshining competitors and securing its position at the forefront of innovation and excellence.

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Sep 04, 2023

Crush Contracts' Game-Changing Approach to Contract Management with Roma Khan

In a world where time is money, contracts stand as the bedrock of every transaction, sealing deals that shape the destiny of organizations. Picture a scenario where every contract is expertly managed, every negotiation streamlined, and every legal hurdle deftly overcome. Envision a future where you never miss a renewal deadline, avoid costly disputes, and confidently navigate through complexities with ease. In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we are thrilled to be joined by Roma Khan. Roma is the CEO of CrushContracts, a trailblazer in contract management, dedicated to democratizing law. As the Contracts Queen, Inventor of Global NDA and Zoey, Attorney, Fashionista & Connector, she brings over a decade of in-house counsel and fractional GC experience, serving Fortune 500 companies and startups.

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Aug 15, 2023

Leveraging Clean Data for Streamlined Contract Management

In the hustle and bustle of the business world, imagine possessing a secret weapon that can help you stay ahead of the competition, navigate stormy waters with ease, and unlock hidden treasures of success. Fortunately, with the rapid advancement of technology and the proliferation of data, that very weapon now lies within your grasp: data-driven insights in contract management. In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we feature the team from Intel who have successfully implemented a CLM tool, and they have been actively using it. Joining us today are Gerald Wright, Senior Manager of Contract Solutions at Intel, Donovan Bell, Director of Information and Contract Experience (Global Legal Operations) at Intel, and Kuan Yu Liu, IT Product Owner at Intel.

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Aug 07, 2023

Chaos No More: How CLM Solutions Save the Day with Sol Brody

In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we are thrilled to sit down with Sol Brody. Sol is the Executive Director, Legal Operations at Boeing. The Boeing Company, along with its affiliated companies, engages in the global design, development, manufacturing, sales, servicing, and support of commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense systems, human space flight initiatives, as well as launch systems and services.

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Jul 31, 2023

Navigating the Challenges of Transitioning to a New CLM System with Trayce Marcelle

In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we sit down with the incredibly experienced Trayce Marcelle who is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience in legal operations management consulting and the Head of US - Legal Operations and Technology Consulting LOD + SYKE.LOD & SYKE are the leading and rapidly expanding experts in legal technology, have collaborated to provide clients with exceptional alternative legal services. They are globally recognized as the biggest and most swiftly advancing specialists in this field.

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Jul 24, 2023

Turning CLM Setbacks Into Success with James Donald

Have you ever wondered how large organizations navigate the complex web of legal obligations, contract management, and compliance requirements in today's ever-changing business landscape? The answer lies in embracing cutting-edge solutions that revolutionize legal operations and optimize efficiency. One such solution gaining significant momentum is Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) technology. In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we are delighted to sit down with James Donald. James is the VP & Deputy General Counsel at Accor in Dubai and has 10+ years' hospitality experience. He has advised on all manner of hotel-related agreements throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Previously, before joining Accor, he led legal and risk in India, the Middle East, and Africa. James is a solicitor of England and Wales, with an economics and finance degree, and a father of twin boys.

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Jul 10, 2023

Streamlining Contracts for Business Success with Courtney Irelan

Have you ever found yourself drowning in a sea of boring contract templates, or struggling to make sense of confusing legal jargon? If you have, you're definitely not alone. It can be incredibly frustrating and overwhelming to deal with all the complicated language and vague terms in legal documents. It's like being lost in a maze without a map.

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Jun 28, 2023

The Evolving Role of Contract Lifecycle Management with Alla Valente

Gone are the days of traditional pen-and-paper contracts, as businesses embrace the digital revolution. In this era of unprecedented connectivity and fast-paced transactions, Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) emerges as a vital component for organizations striving to streamline their operations and maximize efficiency. With the relentless expansion of e-commerce and remote collaborations, the need for effective contract management has never been more crucial.

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Jun 13, 2023

Procurement: From Chaos to Control with David Cho

In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we have the pleasure of speaking with David Cho, a C-Level Managing Director & Chief Procurement Officer at the University of Massachusetts System. Previously, he held key positions at BlackRock, KPMG, and Deloitte, showcasing his expertise in finance, procurement, and strategic planning. During our conversation, David shares valuable insights on building procurement processes from scratch. We delve into the challenges of implementing new processes, the role of technology in procurement, and the importance of measuring ROI. David explains how he and his team centralized the procurement function, simplified the message, modernized policy documents, and used technology to operationalize all processes. We also discuss the significance of change management, communication, and training. Discover the remarkable story of David's team, who not only surpassed expectations but also accomplished a level of work that typically takes organizations three decades to attain.

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Jun 05, 2023

The Future of Enterprise Legal Teams: A Game-Changing Partnership with Justin Silverman & Andy Wishart

This episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast features a discussion between the co-hosts and Justin Silverman and Andy Wishart. Justin is the Senior Vice President, Product Management & Product Strategy at Mitratech while Andy is the Chief Product Officer at Agiloft. In our conversation with Justin and Andy, we dive into the recent partnership between Mitratech and Agiloft, which has generated considerable excitement within the industry. We explore the implications of this collaboration for their esteemed customers and envision the future of contracting. Our discussion primarily centers around the alignment of technology, integration capabilities, and the shared commitment to customer success, which makes this partnership a natural fit. Moreover, we delve into their strategic plans for implementing the solution among their existing customer base and introducing it to legal operations teams actively seeking effective resolutions. This partnership is seen as a game changer in the legal tech industry, offering customers a comprehensive and efficient solution for their legal operations needs.

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May 22, 2023

Understanding CLM: Insights from the Pharma Industry with Angelina Bellanton

In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we are delighted to feature Angelina Bellanton as our special guest. Angelina is currently the Senior Manager of Contracts and IP at Ikena Oncology and has a strong background in the pharmaceutical industry. During our conversation, Angelina provides us with a deeper understanding of the day-to-day work of a contract management team. We discuss the significant advantages of implementing a CLM system, including improved communication between legal and finance, streamlined approvals and signature processes, and the importance of a well-designed contract intake form. Our conversation also covers the importance of selecting the right CLM vendor for the organization and providing proper training to ensure that staff can leverage the system's functionalities effectively.

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May 11, 2023

Legal Operations: The Key To Unlocking Business Success With Mike Haven

Are legal departments really hindering business growth? It seems that many CFOs believe so, but is this perception accurate? In fact, the truth may be quite the opposite. Legal departments are not just gatekeepers of legal compliance, but can actually be key enablers of business success. In this episode of the Contract Heroes Podcast, we are joined by Mike Haven. Mike is the current President of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), a renowned organization dedicated to the advancement of the business of law. In addition to his role at CLOC, he serves as the Head of Legal Operations and Associate General Counsel at Intel Corporation, the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer. Mike has also previously held in-house positions at NetApp and Gap Inc. During our conversation with Mike, we gain valuable insights into the potential benefits of legal operations in enhancing the efficiency of other departments. We dive deep into the crucial role of legal operations in streamlining corporate processes, reducing legal touchpoints for lower risk and complexity agreements, and promoting a culture where legal is viewed as a strategic business partner. We also explore strategies for driving user adoption of CLM tools, leveraging AI functionality in CLM tools, and outsourcing legal operations. We conclude our conversation by sharing key considerations for organizations looking to establish a successful legal operations role. Tune in for these and much more!

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Apr 17, 2023

Frictionless Contracting - Otto Hanson

In this episode of Contract Heroes we are joined by the CEO of TermScout Otto Hanson. During our discussion we talk about the future of contract management, what TermScout is, and how it can help organizations regardless of how they are currently managing their contracts.

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Apr 04, 2023

Gaining Stakeholder Support In Your CLM Journey

During this episode of Contract Heroes we sat down with Dawn Richards. Dawn has an impressive history of leading contracting teams at orgs like Accenture and KPMG and is currently a Sr Contract Manager at VMWare. During our conversation we discussed: How a CLM tool and contract management team can help on a deal-by-deal basis and how to get other departments and stake holders involved in the CLM buying process.

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Mar 27, 2023

The Impact of ChatGPT on CLM - Zach Abramowitz

On this episode of Contract Heroes we met with Zach Abramowitz, the founder at Killer Whale Strategies, a legal industry consultancy firm. He is a thought leader in legal innovation, regularly speaking at conferences, and has a newsletter covering all things legal-tech. During this episode, we explore the impact that ChatGPT will have on the CLM space and legal teams, the potential benefits and challenges of incorporating AI into organizations, and how it can revolutionize the way in-house teams work.

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Mar 16, 2023

Defining Contract Principles - Jerry Silber

On this episode of Contract Heroes Jerry Silber the Vice President & Deputy General Counsel at Verizon Business Group joins us to discuss 6 contracting principles to help your team simplify over-complicated agreements, understand what data is important to monitor post-signature and so much more!

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Mar 06, 2023

LIVE: Procurement Change & Claims Management - Jerry Pessah

In this episode of Contract Heroes, we met with Jerry Pessah the Director II, Contract Manager at Flour Corporation. During his career, he has managed over 7 billion in procurement contracts and helped his clients save over $700 million in claims and negotiations. During our conversation, we discussed what claims management is, why post-execution contracting tasks are so important, and how a real-time procurement process can help businesses avoid potential claims by identifying issues early on in the process.

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Feb 28, 2023

LIVE: Increasing Legal & Procurements Value Through Technology - Steve Brown

On this episode of Contract Heroes recorded live at the WorldCC Conference in Phoenix last year, we sat down with Steve Brown the Senior Manager of Legal Managed Services & Contract Lifecycle Management at EY Law. During our conversation, we discussed how technology can help both legal and procurement teams focus on high-value work, how to continue to maintain your CLM tool beyond go-live, and how to make sure all of your stakeholder's needs are met when evaluating vendors.

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Feb 21, 2023

LIVE: Preventing Contract Revenue Leakage - Leandro Doca

On this episode of Contract Heroes, we sat down with Leandro Doca, the VP and head of CCM for Americas at Capgemini. Drawing on his years of expertise, Leandro shared many tips around aligning third-party and client contracts in order to prevent revenue leakage, tips on evaluating tools to help you your team advance in their contract management journey, and so much more.

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Feb 13, 2023

Automating Outcome-Based Contracts - Anna Fink-Carratt & Phil Dungey

In our most recent episode of Contract Heroes Phil Dungey of Deloitte Legal and Anna Fink-Carratt of SirionLabs helped us break down the key points of codifying your contracts, especially in organizations with complex compliance standards. During our conversation we discussed: What outcome-based contracting is, what industries are using these types of contracts, steps an organization can take to evaluate their contract processes, and so much more!

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Feb 03, 2023

Live: Common CLM Implementation Pitfalls - Lewis Bretts

On this episode of the Contract Heroes we were joined by Lewis Bretts, the Group Managing Director for LOD + SYKE in the US. During our conversation, we touched on a number of things including the main problems most customers face during CLM implementations and how to solve them, the importance of incorporating non-legal stakeholders in your CLM implementation process, advice on where to start the CLM journey, and what to avoid, and so much more.

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Jan 17, 2023

LIVE: Departments Roles In The Contract Lifecycle - Nick Chatas

Nick brings a unique perspective to the discussion of CLMs, having held different positions all throughout GM during his career so far. His broad understanding of the various departments makes him well-suited to help select the CLM tool the company will eventually adopt.

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Jan 10, 2023

LIVE: Integrating CLM Into Your Tech-Stack - Roderick Wade

Joining us for a second time on the show in this episode is Roderick Wade, the Vice President of Contract Management at MedImpact. Rod handles relationships with clients of all shapes and sizes with a focus in the pharmaceutical field. During our live discussion at the WorldCC event in Phoenix we discussed: Why a CLM's ability to integrate with other parts of your tech-stack is so important, leveraging a CLM as your source of truth, how to learn from your contract data and build new processes from it and so much more!

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Jan 06, 2023

LIVE: Legal Design and Contract Visualization - Stefania Passera

Stephania is the founder at Passera Design and the co-founder of the Legal Design Alliance. She is also the inventor of the Legal Design Jam, a sought-after keynote speaker, trainer, and published author. She holds a doctoral degree from Aalto University, where her empirical dissertation focused on how visualization can improve contract user experience and foster better business relationships. During our time together we discussed how the use of diagrams, images, and visually structured layouts can make contracts more understandable and engaging for their day-to-day users, why following a user-centered approach is so important when it comes to contract design and so much more!

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Dec 12, 2022

How To Avoid Common CLM Implementation Pitfalls - Bernadette Bulacan

In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the chance to speak with a well-known figure in the CLM space, Bernadette Bulacan. Bernadette is the Chief Evangelist at Icertis and has been working in legal tech for over 2 decades. During our discussion we touched on: How legal departments have evolved over the past 5-10 years, how can other departments in an organization benefit from a CLM tool, what Pitfalls to watch out for when starting a CLM implementation, how do you handle extracting and migrating data when moving to a new contract management tool and so much more!

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Nov 29, 2022

Tips For CLM Vendor Selection - Lara Trope

In this episode of Contract Heroes, we met with Lara Trope. Lara has experience as both inside and outside counsel and now works as a legal operations consultant at InnoLaw. During our discussion, we talked about how to narrow your search for a CLM tool, what action items you should make sure your team and the vendors are taking to help make sure you're properly evaluating vendors, and also who on your team should be a part of the selection process.

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Nov 17, 2022

Training the Next Generation of Contract Professionals - Jeanette Nyden

In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the chance to chat with author and commercial contracting expert, Jeanette Nyden. Jeanette has written 4 books sharing her expertise in the contracting field and currently provides a range of online and in-person training programs to help contract professionals master the ins and outs of contract management.

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Oct 25, 2022

Building Relationships Through Contracting With Alex Hamilton

In this installment of Contract Heroes, we sat down with the CEO of Radiant Law, Alex Hamilton. Alex set up Radiant Law in 2011 and helps his customers by optimizing how large they create, negotiate and manage their commercial contracts. During our conversation, we discussed how relationships play a pivotal role in contracting processes, how to create reasonable contracts, and tips for building playbooks & templates.

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Oct 11, 2022

The Impact of CLM On Procurement With Prashant Dubey

In this episode of Contract Heroes, we sat down with VP of Contract Solutions and Disability Inclusion at Elevate, Prashant Dubey. Prashant hails from a varied background, starting out in healthcare for about a decade before moving west in the late 90s to switch industries. Throughout our conversation, Prashant drew on his extensive experience working with contract lifecycle management (CLM) software to talk about the growing impact of CLM on procurement departments as well as the key functionalities that proper contract management can accomplish.

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