In tennis, you can’t replay the last point. You focus, execute, and move on. Kristin Rinaldi leads Arxada’s legal team with the same mindset.
Kristin plans the next play even as the rally continues. She balances precision with forward momentum and acknowledges challenges without dwelling on them. Her approach helps keep her team steady in a fast-paced private equity-backed environment.
As Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Arxada, a Bain Capital and Cinven portfolio company, Kristin oversees Legal, Intellectual Property, Compliance, and Trade Compliance for Arxada’s approximate 3,200 staff globally. When Arxada separated from Lonza in 2021 and became an independent business, her department had to adapt in real time, setting the tone for how Legal would operate in a more self-reliant environment. Arxada is a global science-based specialty ingredients business focusing on multiple end-markets, primarily in human health and nutrition, home and personal care, paints and coatings, and wood protection.
Shaping an independent company
“The Legal team has evolved along with Arxada’s journey as an independent company,” Kristin shares.
Before the carveout, Arxada operated as a segment within a large Swiss life sciences company. After the transaction, Arxada, as a standalone company, needed its own systems, governance model, and decision-making framework, no longer able to depend on a parent organization’s infrastructure.
“We became responsible for legal frameworks that had to work across different business models, risk profiles, and growth trajectories,” Kristin notes.
That shift meant, over time, a redesign. She focused on building what she calls “right-sized resourcing, foundational programs and governance, as well as business embedded partnering.” Her team assessed where it had depth and where it had gaps, then rebalanced coverage to match Arxada’s growing needs.
“When we became an independent company, we were slightly overrepresented in some areas and maybe slightly underrepresented in others,” Kristin observes. “And when you have a lean base, you need to be creative with your resources.”
That creativity goes beyond internal roles. Kristin and her team reviewed external support models to ensure that outside counsel and service providers fit Arxada’s new environment. “We’ve made significant changes to nearly all of our outsourced services over the last few years,” she explains.
In a private equity environment, timelines move fast, and expectations remain high. Kristin views the department’s operating model as a practical tool and strives to help the business move forward rather than a formality that slows it down.
Communication, clarity and compliance
Communication is the thread that keeps strategy, risk, and execution aligned across Arxada’s global operations. “I think one overall key is transparent and regular communication,” she remarks.
The team maintains consistent touchpoints with business leaders to stay connected and informed. Some meetings focus on contracts or intellectual property, while others track projects with set budgets and deadlines. “Our teams have regular touchpoints with the businesses and functions to align on overall strategy. It ensures alignment with resourcing, project timing and budgeting,” Kristin adds.
Those conversations do more than coordinate logistics; they build trust. “It helps to build relationships, which in turn helps the overall process,” she points out. For Kristin, the strength of team relationships determines how well legal advice is received across the company.
Communication carries risk in a global organization. Messages that cross borders or languages can lose context or create exposure. To address that, Kristin’s team includes “smart communications” training in the department’s learning framework. “Smart Communications is what we refer to internally. It is a hallmark of the Legal Department’s training,” she clarifies.
The program covers both written and verbal communications, attorney-client privilege, and tone. These issues shape how a team interacts and documents decisions. “We do a good deal of training for the broader organization,” Kristin explains. “Clear communication is the first line of defense in the organization,” she adds. “The goal is to create consistent, compliant behavior through strong communication.”
For Kristin, communication and compliance go hand in hand. One supports the other, ensuring clarity, precision, and trust throughout the business.
Connection and accountability
Kristin leads 16 direct reports spanning regions and work styles. While most of the team works out of one of Arxada’s offices, others work remotely because they live far from the offices. She sees connection as essential to performance. “Connection and support go hand in hand to me,” Kristin observes.
Regular meetings give her team space to align on goals and share experiences. “It’s important for them to have a sense of connection. Those regular meetings foster a sense of community,” she highlights. Although she values skill, she believes success depends on more than expertise.
“It’s an extremely talented team. But talent alone is not enough. You need that sense of community,” she highlights.
Kristin’s mantra is clear, “Empowerment with accountability is important to me.” As one of Arxada’s core compliance functions, Legal must model judgment and integrity. “We are representing one of the key compliance functions at the company. It’s important that we act with integrity,” she notes.
Her team builds Arxada’s legal architecture: policies, governance, and contracts that enable operations. “In our team, we create legal architecture, which includes policies, governance, and contracts to support our business,” Kristin notes. That work depends on talent at all levels and across disciplines. “It’s critical to develop a group of talented associates, as we call them at Arxada. On my team, that’s not just lawyers but all the other legal professionals who are supporting the business and creating value for the company,” she points out.
When she discusses legacy, Kristin focuses on reputation and alignment. “I hope to leave a legacy of a legal function where the culture is one of business partnership, first and foremost. Where Legal is respected, strategic and future-ready,” Kristin envisions.
That culture rests on discipline and structure. “A clear operating model where there are standards and decisions are taken that help the company move in the right direction faster while mitigating risk,” Kristin notes.
Focus at work
Kristin approaches pressure the same way she approached competitive tennis: focus on the point in front of you, then move on.
Kristin played tennis for Millburn High School in New Jersey and then at Colgate University. Over time, her focus shifted, but sports, particularly pickleball, which she plays regularly today, remain part of her rhythm.
Kristin keeps exercising as a daily habit. “Exercising really helps me.” Physical consistency, like mental focus, shapes how she shows up to demanding work.
From tennis, Kristin borrows a simple principle that guides both leadership and law. “While what you’re doing at any given time is the most important thing, and you should do it with focus and do it well. When it’s done, you must leave it behind and must not dwell.”
Her idea of success has evolved since her early career years, when achievement meant personal output. “Success would have been measured more in terms of my individual contributions, a document I drafted,” Kristin reflects. Today, she measures success by the team’s influence and the value it delivers to stakeholders. “Helping our stakeholders, which includes our board, our leadership team, and our workforce, navigate risk, strategy, and transformation,” she explains.
She accepts that progress means missed points along the way. “Setbacks may happen. Not every point can be won,” she highlights. At Arxada, Kristin leads her team with the same momentum she brings to every match: intention, resilience, and forward motion. Each challenge demands full focus, and then it’s time for the next point.
Baker McKenzie is proud to partner with Arxada in safeguarding their business interests around the globe. With more than 1,000 battle-tested litigators, our Dispute Resolution Practice is one of the largest and most recognized in the world. Consistently top-ranked by leading market surveys, our practitioners represent clients in complex multijurisdictional litigation that frequently involves novel and precedent-setting issues. Thanks to our unmatched global footprint and seamless coordination across borders, our team is uniquely positioned to advise our clients and protect their operations in countries around the globe – including markets where competing law firms do not have a local presence.
