Bilardi talks his new leadership role at DLA Piper, and Matthews talks the role she played in picking him as her successor
Last month, DLA Piper dropped the big news that Australia country managing partner Amber Matthews would step down after almost six years in the role. Stepping up to lead the firm Australia arm next would be corporate team head Shane Bilardi.
Australasian Lawyer had a chance to sit down with Matthews and Bilardi recently, and in the first part of this interview, Bilardi tells us how his promotion came as “a pleasant surprise”, while Matthews shares why she thought he was the right candidate to succeed her.
Shane, how did you feel when you heard that you were going to get the promotion to the country managing partner role?
Shane Bilardi: Excited, certainly. I've held leadership roles previously – I was the head of the corporate team at DLA Piper, and I'd always enjoyed the challenge it offered from the from the day-to-day transactional work that I did. So to have the opportunity to take on a larger role was exciting for me – I felt like I was ready for that, to have the opportunity to expand my range in terms of managing a practice and now managing a law firm.
I also felt a lot of responsibility. I feel like, particularly in a partnership, when you take on this role, you take on a lot of responsibility for the partners within the firm, but also the people within the firm. And I think we all talk about it as being custodians for the firm, given that we come and go, but the firm remains. I think that weighed on me as well – the responsibility you take on when you take this role.
But overall, I'm enthusiastic about where we are and what we have to look forward to.
Was this something that was a goal for you, something that you actively wanted to work towards?
Shane Bilardi: No, I don't think I was set on becoming the managing partner. It was more something that sort of evolved over time and I was slightly surprised when the opportunity came up because Amber's been doing an exceptional job and so I wasn't expecting it at this stage. It was more in the way of a pleasant surprise than something I'd set out to get to, but that's OK. That's the way things develop sometimes, and I'm now excited about the opportunity.
Amber, how involved were you in the process of choosing your successor? Was Shane always in the back of your mind as a potential candidate for that?
Amber Matthews: I was very involved – in a role like this, you always look to the person who's currently in that role to see who you think would be the best person to take over. And I've worked with Shane for quite a long time because he's been a member of the Australian leadership team due to his current role as the head of corporate. I've really valued in Shane his strategic thinking and his measured way of looking through issues and problems, and he also engages really well with our people.
So to me, Shane was, I think, a very natural successor. I felt that he would be the right person to take on this role for where we are right now in our journey. We've made a lot of progress over the last 12 years since we've been here in Australia, and Shane, I think, is the person who will be able to really help us accelerate that progress.
What prompted your decision to step down from the role?
Amber Matthews: I think when you're in roles like this, it's good to ensure that there is change in leadership over a period of time. I think six years in a role is a good period that you've really been able to get your teeth stuck into knowing and understanding the business, and creating some change. It's also important to know when it's the right time to hand over to somebody else, and I felt like I had made a lot of progress – I made a really positive impact in the areas where I wanted to do that.
It also takes a lot of energy and motivation and creativity to continue thinking about, “well, what's the next strategy? Where do we take the firm for this next chapter?” We've got change at the leadership level internationally – we've got a new global CEO, and we've got a new executive team. So this was a natural time I think for us all to also to make a change here.
I'd achieved a lot of the things that I'd set out to achieve in this role, and I could see that Shane would be a great person to take us to the next level.
Later this week, Matthews talks what went into the firm’s refresh of its Australian strategy in 2022, and Bilardi talks about taking it to the next step.
