From Law to Creative Industry Leadership – An Eversheds Alumni’s Career Path to the Heart of Film and TV Production
Laura Teirikko‘s career has taken her from traditional law firm legal roles to leading business operations in the creative industry. Laura currently serves as COO of the Reinvent Yellow group, overseeing the group’s operations in Finland, Denmark, and Ireland.
A Deliberate Transition from Law to Business Leadership
Laura moved into the film and TV production industry at the beginning of 2018 when she started as Yellow Film & TV’s first in-house lawyer being one of the first in-house lawyers at a production company in Finland. The role expanded quickly. In less than a year, she advanced to partner and Chief Legal Officer, as well as a member of the group’s executive team. Working with the executive team opened a window into the business as a whole. Laura has always looked beyond her own legal expertise and weighed in on commercial matters as well.
Laura’s interest in creative industries and visual storytelling has also been with her for a long time. She has always been drawn to visual arts and been an avid consumer of films and TV series. Working in film and TV production has, however, also revealed the day-to-day realities of the industry. Productions are essentially project-driven operations that could well be compared to construction projects. Each production forms its own entity, combining creative work with everyday practicalities.
The Big Picture of Business at the Core of Legal Work
At Reinvent Yellow group, Laura is broadly responsible for the group’s operations. She oversees the Legal team, HR, and other support functions, ensuring that the group runs smoothly and profitably. The role is diverse and varied. In recent years, Laura has played a key role in, among other things, the group’s international corporate transactions, and she has also served as interim CEO of one of its subsidiaries.
Although Laura is a lawyer by training, law is now just one of her tools. She has wanted to work close to business from early on and therefore moving in-house was a deliberate choice and a way to get closer to commercial decision-making. According to Laura, a legal background brings significant added value to business leadership. It has created a solid foundation in areas such as risk management, resilience under pressure, and decision-making.
A Law Firm Background as a Strong Foundation
Before moving into the film and TV industry, Laura worked at Eversheds, which she left close to ten years ago. She started as a trainee and progressed over the years to Senior Associate. Laura specialised in intellectual property, technology, media, and data protection.
Laura considers her law firm background an important foundation for her career. It offered the opportunity to work across a variety of industries and with clients of different sizes, to develop contract negotiation skills, and to take on responsibility early in her career. She sees law firm experience as an excellent starting point for in-house roles. Today, when Laura recruits lawyers herself, she views a law firm background as a clear advantage.
Broad experience across different industries, for example, has helped Laura understand business as a whole. The perspective brought from outside has been particularly valuable in an industry where many professionals have built their careers specifically in film and TV production.
From Eversheds’ corporate culture, Laura particularly remembers the early responsibility, trust, flexibility, and the relaxed and collegial atmosphere. Even as a recent graduate, she was able to do independent work directly with clients, which provided excellent preparation for a later in-house career. The organisation was flexible. One could move freely across team boundaries, and Laura actively sought out partners handling media industry assignments. The most significant legacy from the Eversheds years, however, is the people. Lifelong friendships were formed within the work community.
A Changing Industry and the Impact of AI
The film and TV production industry is going through a period of transformation. Traditional clients’ budgets have shrunk, and international co-productions have increased significantly. On a lawyer’s desk, this translates into increasingly complex agreements between multiple contracting parties. At the same time, AI is reshaping production methods, particularly in post-production and visual effects.
Reinvent Yellow group has established a separate studio to develop AI workflows to support productions. From a legal perspective, this development is reflected in increasing regulation and new types of contractual issues. In practice, AI comes up in one way or another in virtually every contract negotiation today.
Technological development also opens new opportunities for law firms. Laura believes that the film and TV industry may still be a somewhat underutilised area of specialisation in law firms, especially now that AI and new technology are constantly generating new legal questions that require knowledge of the specific characteristics of creative industries. From a client’s perspective, Laura values above all clear and practical answers, good communication, and a genuine willingness to listen to the client’s needs.
Advice for Junior Lawyers
Laura’s career path has been built on deliberate choices, fortunate coincidences, and good timing. Early on, she noticed that she was interested not only in law but also in the bigger picture of business, and she actively sought out assignments and people that seemed interesting. The most important thing has been courage. As a young lawyer, she actively sought the company of interesting colleagues and tried to get involved in inspiring assignments. Laura openly admits that she would probably not be in her current position without the relationships she built during her time at Eversheds. It was recommendations from former colleagues that led her to Yellow Film & TV. However, networks and a fulfilling career do not build themselves – building them has required the courage to seize opportunities when they have arisen.
Laura believes that a law firm is an excellent place for building networks, as the work brings a wide variety of people and situations. Ultimately, people recommend those they have worked with and whose expertise they know. According to Laura, this is often the most significant part of career development.
Laura admits that she has had to do some work on her professional identity. She has balanced between whether she is fundamentally a lawyer or whether her place is at the core of business. Now that her role has clearly shifted to the business side, the picture has become clearer. Laura proudly describes herself as a lawyer and considers her legal background a significant advantage. According to her, it enables a kind of double agent role, as she has a built-in legal understanding behind business decision-making.
For lawyers considering their career paths, Laura recommends above all curiosity and openness. Not everything needs to be meticulously planned, and even unexpected experiences can prove significantly valuable later. As an example, Laura mentions that she once practised family and inheritance law, which she never expected to be useful in her current career. However, Yellow Film & TV produces the law-themed series Pohjolan laki, and Laura has been able to use her legal expertise to ensure that the situations depicted in the series look authentic and credible.