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Priyan Pillay returns home to South Africa as General Counsel: Africa for Oppenheimer Generations
After more than a decade at Colgate-Palmolive, including being based in New York and Mumbai the past few years, highly experienced in-house counsel Priyan Pillay has returned to the continent to head the African legal function for the global interests of the Nicky and Jonathan Oppenheimer family.
There is something particularly meaningful about bringing international experience back home to South Africa, reconnecting with the people and places he’s missed, and contributing to the growth of South Africa and the wider continent, said in-house legal leader Priyan Pillay, as he recently left Colgate-Palmolive in India to return to Johannesburg to become General Counsel: Africa at Oppenheimer Generations.
A distinguished in-house legal counsel with two decades’ experience across corporate and commercial law, ethics and compliance, and enterprise risk management, Pillay spent most of the past four years as Vice-President, Chief Compliance Counsel for giant FMCG multinational Colgate-Palmolive at its headquarters in New York, then Vice-President, Legal for Colgate-Palmolive India.
A law graduate of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he also earned an LLM, Pillay began his legal career as a Candidate Attorney at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, rising to Senior Associate before moving in-house in November 2011 to become a Senior Legal Counsel: Corporate Commercial at British American Tobacco.
Over the next few years Pillay rose into regional legal leadership roles and led legal strategy for corporate, commercial, supply chain, and operational matters in a highly regulated multinational environment. In December 2015, Pillay moved to Colgate-Palmolive, first leading the giant multinational’s legal function across Southern Africa, then sub-Saharan Africa, before moving to New York in March 2023 to provide strategic counsel to senior leadership and global legal, compliance, audit, and governance stakeholders on complex cross-border legal, regulatory, and reputational risk across Colgate-Palmolive’s worldwide operations.
Last month, as he revealed he was thrilled to be “coming home to South Africa” and starting an exciting new adventure, Pillay shared his “immense gratitude” for his nearly 11 years at Colgate-Palmolive, a chapter that “meant so much” to him, professionally and personally. “It has been a privilege to lead exceptional teams and to learn and grow alongside colleagues around the world who have challenged me, supported me and made the work genuinely rewarding,” he added. “The culture and values that brought us together will stay with me long after I leave.”
Now Pillay will lead the African legal function for Oppenheimer Generations, an umbrella organisation headquartered in Johannesburg, with offices in London and Singapore.
Oppenheimer Generations represents the global interests of the Nicky and Jonathan Oppenheimer family through various commercial and investment arms, including Tswalu Kalahari, South Africa’s largest private game reserve, and Fireblade Aviation, along with philanthropic and non-profit entities operating in research and conservation, higher education and public interest initiatives, and economic and policy support.