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  2. Meet our expert: Maria Figueiredo, Partner, Portugal
  3. Meet our expert: Dalia Majumder-Russell, Partner, UK
  4. Digitalisation and innovation
  5. Contributing to climate-neutral transportation
  6. Investing in intelligent automation
  7. Advising on innovative digital project
  8. Supporting climate-resilient businesses
  9. Supercharged ESG: Getting control of the post-COVID agenda
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  17. Digital transformation & sustainability to help overcome COVID crisis
  18. Data and risk: challenges in an uncertain world
  19. Smart living: creating a framework for disruption and innovation
  20. Technology: a unifying force
  21. The green economy: identifying primary risks and key opportunities
  22. The true cost of ESG
  23. Developing markets
  24. Helping our clients grow
  25. Investing in new technologies
  26. Shaping the Energy Transition
  27. Supporting electromobility
  28. Transforming the short-term insurance industry in the East African market
  29. Advising on a EUR 1.1bn Bulgarian gas pipeline procurement
  30. ALPLA expands its global plastic recycling capabilities
  31. CMS advises on first ever European real estate transaction using blockchain
  32. CMS advises on ‘Train Maya’ rail project
  33. CMS helps the BBC launch the streaming service BritBox in the UK
  34. Commerz Real lands the largest deal in its history
  35. Helping Teyliom Hospitality’s expansion in Central and West Africa
  36. Online gambling grows as Gamesys is sold to JPJ Group
  37. Selling the Merkur offshore wind farm
  38. ST Pharm establishes new medical testing and analysis business line
  39. CMS expands in Norway
  40. One woman’s journey to advocating for fair global health
  41. Raising funds for a good cause
  42. CMS Academy adds participants through digital learning
  43. Lupl delivers transformative open industry platform for legal matters
  44. Heike Wagner on women in law

CMS Academy adds participants through digital learning

The CMS Academy provides a range of opportunities for CMS people to learn and practise the so-called ‘soft skills’ that are vital to a lawyer’s work. It will reach the wider CMS population through digital and online channels as it continues to respond to COVID-19 restrictions, growing climate change concerns linked to travel and a wider demand for access to the programme.

The CMS Academy delivers a wide range of training and coaching programmes, seminars and webinars on soft skills. This includes pitching, selling, communication, intercultural training, networking, influencing and impact training and resilience. The Academy has a distinct focus on the business of law, helping participants to perform better and develop more rewarding careers and lifestyles as well as improving the culture and fabric of CMS.

Matthias Lichtblau, previous CMS Executive Director, is convinced of the CMS Academy’s success, “Over the last decade, it has enhanced the careers of hundreds of CMS lawyers. Today, with CMS’s continuing expansion, it is reaching more participants than ever. Due to widespread enthusiasm for the Academy’s learning and development programmes, efforts to create digital content for online sessions was already in full flow well before the COVID-19 outbreak.” 

Recent online sessions include promoting impact and influencing skills, presenting effectively in a virtual environment, managing difficult conversations and dealing with conflicts.

Providing online content that is as engaging or as productive as in-person events is paramount, according to Ulrike Staats, Senior Manager of Global HR / Learning & Development, “By doing it right, spending a lot of effort on facilitation and delivery, we can create something that comes close to physical programmes. We need to get this right so that when people have to work from home, they can collaborate in a trusted environment.

Matthias Lichtblau believes that the CMS Academy plays an important role in cementing and deepening the connections between various CMS offices, “It provides common ground for all our lawyers throughout the world to generate broader and more international viewpoints. It delivers a sense of unity within the business so that we can grow together as one CMS.” 

The CMS Academy is currently divided into three broad training programmes for junior and senior associates, recently promoted partners and more senior partners. 

Ulrike Staats has seen particularly impressive results stemming from the Partner Peak Performance Programme, a personal coaching programme directed at senior figures in the firm. CMS was awarded the inaugural International PRISM Award by the International Coaching Federation and RELEVANT Management Consulting for this programme. 

Ulrike Staats says the Partner Peak Performance Programme has been hugely transformational for many partners, “Participants tell me that the programme has provided them with fresh perspectives on themselves and their ways of working as well as a compelling vision for the future.