Within any global manufacturer, legal sits at a seemingly awkward intersection; the business wants to move quickly and get products out the door, while legal teams are responsible for identifying and reducing risk. At Flowserve Corporation (Flowserve), Chief Legal Officer Susan Hudson spends her days closing the distance between those demands, and she rejects the idea that they pull in opposite directions.
Flowserve is a publicly traded, global manufacturer of pumps, valves, and seals for critical infrastructure such as nuclear power plants and pharmaceutical facilities. “I view us as a company that a lot of people don’t know about, but we help power the world,” Susan summarizes. “Without our products, you’re not getting your energy.”
As a member of the executive leadership team (ELT), Susan advises the CEO, leads enterprise risk management, runs M&A activity, and oversees governance, litigation, compliance, trade compliance, and ESG. In an unusual addition to the legal remit, she also manages the marketing, communications, and design group.
Falling into law
Her journey into law was far from straightforward. “I fell into law a little bit; I didn’t have a traditional path,” Susan admits. “I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, and it was my younger sister who dreamed of a career in law.”
Susan’s own path first led her to Washington, DC for a job after college. Feeling homesick, she moved back to Texas, where her sister was working at a law firm and helped Susan secure a job there. “I always wanted to be independent and to pursue something intellectually challenging,” she recalls. “I decided to take the LSAT and see how it turned out. I scored well and spent the next stretch working at a small law firm in the day and studying law at night.”
Susan’s early career focused on building range rather than specialism. She provided outside general counsel services for small businesses, handled employment work and litigation, and even once tried a criminal case. A move to Pier 1 Imports followed, where Susan ran the litigation department and the employment law team, before joining Flowserve around a decade ago. At Flowserve, she first worked across global employment law, executive compensation and benefits, supply chain contracting, and distributor sales before becoming Chief Compliance Officer and then Chief Legal Officer.
“Once I moved in-house, that’s when I fell in love with legal work,” Susan shares. “I’m probably most passionate about being able to partner with businesspeople who don’t have legal backgrounds. I enjoy translating complex legal situations into something people across the business can understand and then helping them manage risk and identify creative solutions. It’s the hybrid of law and business that’s my sweet spot.”
Risk and growth as partners
Susan’s central argument is that risk and growth do not have to compete. “The legal team’s job is to ensure the company understands its risks, help mitigate them, and support informed decisions, all of which depends on business acumen,” Susan explains. “A lawyer who understands how the company makes money, who its customers and competitors are, and where the strategy is heading can build risk mitigation that delivers growth rather than blocking it.”
The biggest shift for Susan’s team came with a change in mindset. Legal work, she argues, cannot be risk avoidance at any cost. “You need to be pragmatic in the solutions,” she says. “Often, business leaders have one idea, and attorneys may have a more conservative approach, and there’s always a workable solution to be found somewhere in the middle. The executive team tends to be fast-paced and collaborative, requiring advice in real time as discussion happens. I don’t walk away at the decision point. It’s important to see your decision all the way through implementation. It allows you see the real impact of a decision, and you can apply what you learned in future situations.”
With the board, the work is broader and often slower, as directors carry duties to investors. Susan focuses on providing full context, management recommendations, and the alternatives and assumptions behind each decision so they can exercise independent judgment.
Underpinning both aspects is a written vision Susan keeps in front of her department: to be service-oriented partners who provide solutions, minimize risk, and enable value creation. “It’s service, solution, risk, value,” she confirms. “We bring this vision to life through three guiding principles: customer service, domain expertise, and productivity. It applies to everyone from litigators to those running marketing campaigns.”
Susan frames these guiding principles simply: customer service means understanding the business objectives and delivering practice solutions with urgency. Domain expertise combines legal knowledge with business acumen to provide credible, relevant guidance. Productivity is about continuously improving and simplifying how the team works. “We focus on solving the biggest challenges facing the company, and each initiative we take on must support at least one of these principles,” Susan explains.
Global standard
Alongside her own priorities, Susan and her team follow Flowserve’s five core values: people, safety, integrity, ownership, and ingenuity. For a Chief Legal Officer, integrity is particularly important: it provides a common standard for sound decisions and building trust across a global organization. “Integrity is well appreciated around the organization, but it means different things to different people,” Susan says.
Flowserve’s solution is a code of conduct that sets the rules for everyone: global integrity, local ownership. While it outlines a global standard, it still allows local teams to take responsibility for making the culture real on the ground.
The mechanism Flowserve leverages to drive local ownership is a program called Integrity Champions. More than 100 associates around the world volunteer for the role, which includes training new employees on integrity culture and helping run the company’s annual integrity and compliance day. “These associates have a natural passion for integrity and want to help embed value across the company,” Susan elaborates. “The local presence of our Champions is what enables a strong global standard.”
Productivity power
Like most businesses, Flowserve is adopting AI to enhance productivity, but on legal, Susan is firm on the boundaries. “This is some of the coolest stuff we’re doing right now, and if AI is handled in the right way, it could unlock significant efficiencies for us,” she states.
“While we’re using a system to speed up the first-pass of contract reviews, AI is certainly not a contract negotiator. At first, some people were concerned about how the use of AI will impact their jobs. Our view is that AI is a tool that frees time for people to spend on the more interesting parts of their role. It’s also a skill worth building, keeping my team members professionally competitive rather than falling behind.”
Bringing others forward
Throughout her journey in legal, Susan’s definition of success has evolved significantly. “Early on, I was constantly chasing something, whether it was new opportunities, progression, or job titles,” she reflects. “It’s not a bad thing to chase, especially early in your career, as saying yes to assignments and rotations opened doors for new experiences.”
Today, Susan’s focus has shifted away from her own career and toward how she can support and uplift others. “I’m super passionate about the development of our people, and it really hit home when I moved into the Chief Legal Officer role,” she explains. “I want the talent on my team and across the company to have opportunities and experiences that make people more well-rounded and better equipped to give sound advice.
“I’m aware there’s going to be a point where I move on, and I want to set up the next generation for success. To me, that’s my biggest legacy: that a successor comes out of my organization, and all the way down we’re seeing promotions. That’s the dream.”
Susan’s approach to development is evident in how she manages her team, from a development and engagement committee to ‘lunch and learn’ training sessions. A firm favorite is project pools, where the leadership team collates worthwhile projects and offers them to the wider team. “This gives people with capacity a stretch assignment and a legal sponsor to support them, while we get to tick a project off the list,” Susan explains. “It’s meaningful development that gives people a broader perspective around the organization.”
Off the clock
Away from work, Susan enjoys time with her husband and two teenage daughters, who often travel the world together. “My daughters are lovely; they’re not your typical teenagers,” she laughs. “I also love spending time outdoors, whether it’s hiking, hunting, or paddleboarding, and as a TCU graduate, I still follow the TCU Horned Frogs football team.”
Susan’s preference for progress and people is the thread that ties her personal life and career together. It runs through both the way she approaches risk as something to work with rather than fear, and in the culture and vision she has established across her team.
Baker McKenzie
Baker McKenzie is a full-service global law firm with more than 6,200 lawyers and tax advisers across over 70 offices in more than 40 jurisdictions worldwide. Founded in Chicago in 1949, the Firm was the first law firm to establish an overseas office and remains the original international law firm. Baker McKenzie provides integrated legal and tax advice across all core practice areas, combining deep local insight with a global perspective to help clients navigate complex domestic and cross-border matters and achieve their business objectives wherever they operate.
Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
Cravath has been known as a premier U.S. law firm for more than two centuries, playing a central role in developing how law is practiced, how lawyers are trained and how business risk is managed. Each of its practice areas is highly regarded, and Cravath lawyers are recognized around the world for their commitment to the representation of clients’ interests. The firm is honored to work with Susan Hudson of Flowserve, and to support her well-deserved recognition in this issue of Modern Counsel.
