Colin Carroll and Bjarne P. Tellmann

Last week, Keltie was delighted to host the 50^th speaker event for the Lawyers’ Business Development Club at our offices at No. 1 London Bridge in London. The guest for this event was Bjarne P. Tellmann, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Pearson Plc, who joined Colin Carroll, the founder of the LBDC, for a fireside chat about his career path and “Leading Legal Teams in an Age of Innovation and Divergence”.

Black Belt, Brown Belt

Colin and Bjarne opened with the revelation that they both hold belts at karate (Bjarne is a black belt (“though it’s been a few years…”) and Colin is a brown belt) and Colin asked Bjarne what lessons he had been able to take from the discipline. Bjarne noted that in karate you need to be able to keep cool, remember to breathe and just react. It’s important to focus on the moment and learn not to underestimate any opponent, all of which are lessons that he’s taken away into life in general. The other take away from the world of karate is that attaining a black belt is just the start, you never really attain mastery and there’s always something else to learn and experience. (more…)