Senior in-house moves across the media, culture and financial services sectors have seen former Virgin Money legal director Jasan Fitzpatrick named general counsel (GC) at Premium Credit, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) hand interim GC Marina Zain a permanent role, former News Corp GC Lon Jacobs take up a deputy role at Time Inc. and HMRC’s GC Anthony Inglese prepare to retire.
Inglese, who has led HMRC’s 200-strong legal team since 2008, is set to retire in January 2014. Since joining the civil service in 1975 to train as a barrister, Inglese has spent his entire 38-year career in public service, working in seven government departments and heading five of them.
In 1991 he became legal head at the Office of Fair Trading, head lawyer at the Ministry of Defence in 1995, deputy treasury solicitor in 1997, and solicitor to the Department of Trade and Industry from 2002 to 2008.
Inglese also leads on professionalism and ethics for the government legal service and is a bencher at Gray’s Inn and a member of the Bar Standard’s Board.
HMRC is yet to announce his replacement.
Meanwhile, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has confirmed that Zain – who stepped into the role on an interim basis six months ago following the departure of former head of legal Caroline Barnett, who left to begin her own legal consultancy firm – will take the role of legal chief permanently.
The role is a sector swap for Zain, who has worked for 20 years in senior roles in the tech and tobacco industry, at organisations such as IBM, EMC and British American Tobacco, handling cross-border work across EMEA, the US and the Asia Pacific.
RSC director of finance Stephen Eames said: ‘Following an external selection process, we are delighted to announce the appointment of Marina Zain as our new head of legal. Marina is a very accomplished in-house lawyer with extensive experience across a range of commercial organisations and we are pleased that she has decided to join the RSC.’
Across the Atlantic and former GC of News Corporation Lon Jacobs has taken up the legal chief role at Time Inc., as current owner Time Warner plans to spin off its Time publishing unit in early 2014 and focus its strategy on its TV business.
Most recently, Jacobs served as executive vice president, legal & general counsel for New York’s Empire State Development Corporation, having resigned from News Corporation where he worked for 15 years. Jacobs oversaw all legal matters including the acquisitions of DIRECTV and Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, until his resignation in 2011.
Current Time Inc. GC Maurice Edelson is moving to Time Warner, taking up the role as senior vice president and deputy GC.
Time Inc. CEO, Joe Ripp, said: ‘Lon has deep public company experience with one of the world’s leading media organisations. He will be a valuable asset to us as we move to become an independent public company. Maurice has helped guide this company for many years and I thank him for his leadership as he takes on a new role with Time Warner.’
Elsewhere, it has emerged that Fitzpatrick earlier this year ended a year-long career break by taking on the role of GC at consumer credit firm Premium Credit, which was bought by private equity house GTCR from Bank of America affiliate MBNA Europe in November 2012.
francesca.fanshawe@legalease.co.uk
