Samantha McGonigle – General counsel, Hg Year of qualification: 2003 Hogan Lovells, 2001-06 Weil, Gotshal & Manges, 2006-19 Farview Equity Partners, 2019-24 Paul Hastings, 2023-24 Hg, 2024-present What do you most enjoy about working in PE? Private equity is incredibly diverse and dynamic. Even within a very specialist firm like Hg, which focuses only on …
I nearly drowned in a river in Wales when I was four. It had been raining a lot and the boulder my brother and I were standing on beside the river toppled into the water. I fell into the river and was held under by a waterfall. My mother, father and a passerby all dived …
‘No-one should be under any illusion that the hours are fewer, or the work less demanding. You don’t have the luxury of working on just one thing; you’re juggling multiple deals, multiple fund formations and perhaps litigation,’ says Carlyle partner, chief risk officer, head of EMEA and global general counsel (GC) for Investments Heather Mitchell …
What does it take to run the legal team in one of the most profitable deal shops in the world? After months of discussions with private equity and leveraged finance partners at the leading law firms in London as well as a host of in-house lawyers, Legal Business has come up with the definitive list …
Continue reading “The Private Equity Elite: the top general counsel in PE”
Susanna Berger – Managing director, general counsel for Europe, KKR & Co Year of qualification: 2002 University of Chicago Law School, 1997-98 Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, 2000-06 Avenue Capital Management, 2006-08 Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, 2008 KKR & Co, 2009-present I joined KKR 15 years ago. At that point the team consisted of about 40 …
Continue reading “‘Private capital is a super creative industry’ – KKR Europe GC Susanna Berger”
Seda Yalçinkaya – Partner and GC – International, Apollo Global Management Year of qualification: 2009 Columbia Law School, 1995-98 Cravath, Swaine & Moore, 1998-2005 Citi, 2005-11 Silver Lake, 2011-19 Apollo Global Management, 2019-present I started my career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York. It was a deliberate choice – I had thought I’d …
Rachel Thompson – Partner and group general counsel, Bridgepoint Year of qualification: 2007 Clifford Chance, 2005-09 Bridgepoint, 2010-present It was never really a conscious decision to go in-house; I came on secondment from Clifford Chance two years after qualification, when Bridgepoint had just hired [former Travers Smith private equity head] Charlie Barter as its first …
Will Rosen – GC (Europe private equity), Bain Year of qualification: 1994 Weil Gotshal & Manges, 1996-2007 DLA Piper, 2008-11 Ropes & Gray, 2011-22 Bain Capital, 2022-present What made you decide to make the switch in-house? And how have you found the change? After a very enjoyable and fulfilling, decade-long career with Ropes & Gray …
Melanie Sanchez – Global general counsel, investments, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Clayton Utz, 2005-06 Blake, Cassels & Graydon, 2006-14 Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, 2014-present I ended up working on private equity deals not by design, but rather by chance. I started out my career in Australia as a financing lawyer and when I moved to …
Chris Bulger – GC, Vitruvian Partners Year of qualification: 2007 Slaughter and May, 2005-14 Goldman Sachs, 2014-18 Vitruvian Partners, 2018-present Why did you want to become a private equity lawyer? I have been involved with alternative asset managers since 2005, during the early stages of my training contract with Slaughter and May. I became very …
