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Large-scale operations rely on consistency. Yet, points of failure often hide in process gaps, delayed signals, and fragmented accountability. Companies that manage thousands of sites and millions of data points every day rarely face risk as a single event. Risk builds through patterns across locations. By the time it surfaces, the cost is already embedded.
Kellermeyer Bergensons Services (KBS) runs at a scale where consistency depends on coordination across people, processes, and systems. The company delivers facility services across industries, spanning janitorial work to exterior maintenance and operational support, covering over two billion square feet every day. KBS blends local execution with centralized technology, creating a steady flow of data that guides operations and manages risk early.
Janet Saura, Chief Legal, Compliance, and Chief Information Officer at KBS, sits right at the center of this environment. At this scale, signals matter. Legal, compliance, and technology are not separate silos. Together, they shape how the business anticipates and responds to issues before they take hold. “I lead a team that enables the business and gives it flexibility to make informed decisions and help it grow,” Janet shares.
She joined KBS in March 2025 with a directive to bring legal, compliance, and risk into a single, integrated function. “I came with a clear mandate: elevate the legal, compliance, and risk functions as one team that gets ahead of issues before they impact our people, our operations, or our financials,” Janet explains. Her remit quickly expanded to include IT, reflecting her view that the systems that prevent risk and the systems that run operations are often the same.
Her first step wasn’t to redesign processes – she listened. “I started with a listening tour, a structured effort to hear from every critical voice before forming a conclusion,” Janet recalls. She met with legal staff, business partners, outside counsel, and board members, reviewing contracts, litigation, and workflows along the way. In every conversation, she asked, “How do we learn, capture, and share lessons?”
Janet used those insights to build a 90-day plan and a path forward. Monthly business reviews set the pace. Team sessions brought people together to build shared understanding, explaining why she prioritized in-person sessions: “You cannot build a high-performing culture across a screen.”
These efforts led to four priorities: driving commercial value, safeguarding the business through risk intelligence, building litigation and compliance mechanisms, and empowering the business with legal expertise. By design, each priority supports decisions rather than respond to outcomes.
Her approach connects directly to how she sees the legal function. “Show up as a business partner. You do not need every answer, but you do need to use sound business judgment and insight to present the best advice to the business,” Janet points out.
Data and signals
At Ford Motor Company, Janet worked in e-discovery and saw how data reveals patterns. Janet remembers “learning the power of data and pattern matching at scale very early.”
At Lowe’s, she built programs to reduce litigation exposure. “Having a single leader dedicated to proactive programs was a game changer,” she says. The structure enabled the team to focus on prevention.
At Amazon, Janet led a global employee relations and investigations team. The scale reinforced that mindset. “I have always focused on solving problems proactively rather than waiting for escalation,” Janet adds.
Today, those experiences guide how she measures success at KBS. “Many legal functions measure outputs, like cases closed, litigation spend, or settlement amounts. All are important, but they are lagging indicators,” Janet observes. Instead, her team focuses on early signals like response times, training completion, repeat issues, and contract clarity to understand and influence outcomes before they materialize.
That philosophy extends beyond litigation into safety and operations. “The best legal metric is the one that never shows up in a report because we caught it early enough that it never became an issue,” Janet says. This philosophy led to the ‘Nothing Happened Award’, which celebrates prevention work that never generates a case, claim, or report.
Technology plays a central role, though Janet frames it as an enabler. “Technology embedded into processes gives legal and risk teams the greatest impact. It does not replace judgment, but it helps you move through data faster and see patterns that might otherwise not be visible,” Janet explains.
Her dual role across legal and IT reflects that view. Systems must deliver usable outputs. Data must lead to action. “It is imperative to bring technology solutions that work for the business, cut through the noise of data, and provide actionable steps consistently,” Janet remarks.
Language and leadership
Early in her career, she learned that being correct did not always lead to alignment. “I think about this every time we engage with a business partner or roll out a compliance initiative. We know what we want to say, but what are they going to hear? If the two are not aligned, we are not ready,” Janet reflects.
That insight traces back to her work with Frank Luntz, where she saw how framing shapes outcomes. She still applies that lesson when she presents legal risk. “When I started framing legal risk in terms of cost, revenue impact, and competitive position rather than legal exposure, everything changed,” Janet notes.
Economists, psychologists, and data experts have worked alongside legal professionals on Janet’s team, analyzing behavior and identifying root causes. “We were not solving the root cause – not for lack of effort, but because we were misdiagnosing the problem,” Janet admits. “Small events lead to bigger ones, so it is important to track them,” she adds. A multi-disciplinary team and tech show connections and insights not otherwise visible.
That same mindset shapes how she defines legal leadership. “The legal leader of the future is not just a lawyer. They are a systems thinker, a business leader, a technologist, and a people leader,” Janet says.
Looking ahead, Janet expects legal, compliance, and operations to work even more closely together as technology reshapes how teams operate. Automation will take over routine tasks, freeing teams to focus on strategy and prevention. “In the next 12 to 18 months, technology and AI will transform how legal teams perform and deliver services,” Janet predicts. That shift will bring legal teams closer to faster decision-making and align risk insights and real options with business outcomes.
For Janet, one principle holds: see risk early, communicate it clearly, and act before it takes shape.
Greenberg Traurig, LLP has approximately 3,100 lawyers across 51 locations in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. The firm’s broad geographic and practice range enables the delivery of innovative and strategic legal services across borders and industries. Recognized as a 2025 BTI “Best of the Best Recommended Law Firm” by general counsel for trust and relationship management, Greenberg Traurig is consistently ranked among the top firms on the Am Law Global 100, NLJ 500, and Law360 400. Greenberg Traurig is also known for its philanthropic giving, culture, innovation, and pro bono work. Web: www.gtlaw.com.
