Quaker Houghton’s Ajla Glavasevic: Identify What Drives People

Ajla Glavasevic, Deputy General Counsel and Global Data Privacy Officer with Quaker Houghton, advises clients on a range of legal issues, particularly data privacy, artificial intelligence (AI), litigation, regulatory issues, and environmental-related matters. Passionate about social justice, Ajla serves as the diversity officer on the board of the Association of American University Women (AAUW) in Pennsylvania. In this excerpted conversation with Morgan Lewis partner Louise Skinner and associate Alyssa Pugh, Ajla shares her insights on being a leader in the legal department of a large global company, how sports have directly impacted her career development, and her advice for external legal counsel.

As an accomplished legal advisor leading the data privacy and AI sector of your organization, how would you describe your leadership style, and how has this approach generated positive results from your team?

A global company operating in 35 locations, I work with a legal team of nine at Quaker Houghton. I aim to lead with kindness and a genuine curiosity. I have fairly high expectations of myself, leading me to pull my team along in that venture, but I am a direct communicator and someone who advocates for accountability and transparency.

I’ve had some incredible mentors in my life, as well as bosses, who have highlighted what I should be doing and what has a positive impact on my team and the people I work with. I've also had some not-so-great bosses. It was important for me to distinguish what didn’t work and identify those challenges within team dynamics to ensure I did not make those same mistakes.

I love to challenge my team and encourage them to tackle opportunities outside of their comfort zones and support them in that process.

During your time at the University at Buffalo, you competed as a D1 heptathlete on a national level. You were also a member of the US women’s Olympic bobsled team. Tell us about these experiences and what drove you to participate at such a competitive level?

I started participating in sports at an early age, participating in gymnastics as a young child. I also played volleyball and competed in track and field during my secondary years.

Athletics has always been ingrained in me and the way that I function and operate. I am highly competitive by nature, and it was a natural progression to keep sports in my life.

I received a full scholarship to compete in track and field in university and was a Division One athlete. I got my B.S. in finance and then went on to law school. Immediately following university, I was healing from an injury and needed a break from athletics, and law school had been something I had wanted to achieve since I was child. While in law school, I realized I missed athletic competition.

The USA bobsled team had reached out to me to compete while I was a track and field athlete competing at a national level, and I stayed in contact with some of the athletes during law school, which led to my decision to combine for the national roster. I found out that I had passed the bar and made the team within two weeks of each other. You can imagine I had what was the equivalent of an existential crisis about what I was going to do with my life. Ultimately, I competed for Team USA for the 2014–2015 season and just had an incredible experience.

While I stopped competing due to my injury, I only remember that it was a wonderful, fulfilling experience. While in private practice, I still committed myself to a number of athletic pursuits, including an ultramarathon, which was horrendous and rewarding all in one! It pushed me in a different capacity, and it took a lot of discipline and focus, but it was an outlet to relieve stress and a goal to strive for at the same time.

How have sports and activities alike contributed to your professional career development—be it relationships, team building, communication, etc.? 

It’s made a significant impact on my career development. Sports and the level that I've competed at had taken a lot of discipline, determination, and perseverance. I am somebody who, over time, has learned to work and thrive off constructive criticism. That was a takeaway where, if I had a boss or the equivalent, I would tell them, “I would rather know what I'm doing wrong. Just tell me. I can handle it.”

I've had a lot of that throughout my life and I would rather be able to fix it appropriately, and it's also given me the ability to shake off failures and just keep trying because nothing is perfect. But I do have a team-based perspective. I have had diverse teammates, and they all have different communication styles, in turn, receiving and interpreting communication differently. They're all driven by different things, and as an athlete throughout my life, it has given me the capacity to understand that this applies in the professional world while also applying personally on an everyday basis. When it comes to my team and working on teams more generally, it's important for me to identify what drives people and understand their communication style, which helps me make a greater, more meaningful impact on those individuals.

As a female in a predominantly male-led industry, what is the one piece of advice you would offer our women lawyers in how to approach asking for and/or negotiating business terms?

Because of my competitive nature, I have always just wanted to be the best, regardless of gender. This was not something on my vision map. It was just to be the best and that has in certain ways carried over. I am fully cognizant that women have been having to fight for opportunities in differing ways from men and face varying challenges, which gives me heightened awareness and focus on helping others to succeed.

My advice would be to distinguish your work style and professional life—and own it. Sometimes when I listen to individuals talk about their careers, I sit back because there's certain things that I've never actually worried about, but they're logical in nature and I value those perspectives.

Don't worry about how you will be perceived and remain true to yourself. Every single one of us has a communication style, a leadership style, a working style—things that are important to us inherently, that may differ from others. Retaining that identity in the way that you work is important because it provides a level of confidence to be fearless in the obstacles that you are tackling.