In a regulatory world where every geography speaks a different legal language, leaders who can translate complexity into clarity become the real anchors of global business. Kriti Sharma, Director & Head of Regulatory, Legal, and Global Compliance for Southeast Asia, Middle East, India, and Regional Europe at Dun & Bradstreet, stands at the center of this transformation. With 15+ years across AI, SaaS, privacy, fintech, med-tech, IP, and commercial tech, she brings rare mastery to today’s fast-shifting regulatory landscape. A Forbes Top 100 Lawyer and BW Legal World 40 Under 40 awardee, she blends intellectual depth with bold leadership.
On this Ganesh Chaturthi Special of Koffee Conversation @TEIF, Kriti delivers a compelling narrative — equal parts adrenaline, wisdom, and precision. From Oxford to Asia-Pacific, her journey radiates courage, clarity, and a deep sense of responsibility. She decodes cross-border compliance, AI ethics, consent frameworks, crypto challenges, and the mindset required to lead multicultural legal teams. Her voice is sharp, empathetic, and anchored in lived experience — the signature of a modern global leader.
Kriti’s journey began in Bhopal as the black sheep in a family of engineers. From surviving on ₹20 in her pocket to training as a national-level basketball player, she grew up learning discipline, humility, and courage. At National Law Institute University (NLIU Bhopal), she poured eight hours a day into cracking her entrance exam — a decision that set the foundation for a career built on resilience and intent. Campus recruitment led her to Kaitan & Co, where she absorbed the fundamentals of company law, filings, compliance, and corporate rigor. Those early years sharpened her instincts for structure and precision.
Her trajectory transformed through diverse roles — across med-tech (Smith & Nephew), fintech and crypto (CoinSwitch), and multiple global tech ecosystems. Oxford became a turning point, shaping her worldview and exposing her to multicultural legal expectations. As an in-house counsel and now a regional legal leader, Kriti has navigated data localization, AI governance, cross-marketing of financial products, multi-country regulatory reforms, and real-time crisis management. Her leadership philosophy — listen more, talk less, lead by example, manage ego, build teams — reflects wisdom earned across continents.
Key Highlights of the Koffee Conversation with Kriti Sharma:
- Navigating seven-country compliance feels like steering a ship through shifting regulatory tides.
- Oxford helped her unlearn biases and embrace cultural and linguistic diversity with ease.
- Biggest corporate blind spot: hustle culture overshadowing compliance discipline.
- Believes compliance is not a support function — it anchors business, enabling outcomes.
- Learnt robotics, quality issues, consumer protection, and grievance redressal during her med-tech stint.
- Leadership mantra: listen more, talk less, walk the talk, and keep ego out of the room.
- Stressing pre-evaluation, audits, and oversight as the backbone of agile legal frameworks.
- Explains consent differences globally — express, implied, silence-as-consent, and granular approvals.
- Strong advocate for transparency in data use, privacy-by-design, and ethical AI adoption.
- Crypto compliance example: rewrote privacy policies and implemented granular consent for cross-marketing
- Lawyers must read AI, privacy, AML, and cybersecurity together, not in isolation.
- Encourages young lawyers to learn coding and Python — future negotiations may be “blind across code.”
- Awards bring pride but also pressure to think right, speak right, and act responsibly.
- Her grounding comes from working out like a bull and finding therapy in cutting vegetables.
- Describes herself in one line: Grateful.
🎥 Watch the full Koffee Conversation with Kriti Sharma on YouTube — a masterclass in global regulatory leadership, AI governance, and the mindset needed to thrive across borders.
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