Key clients: Friends Life, Julius Baer, Novartis, Lloyds Banking Group
Partner since 2008
Why corporate? The sheer variety. The access to senior decision-makers in clients was fantastic.
Rising Star: Chris McGaffin, Slaughter and May
Key clients: ARM Holdings, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, Shire, Aggreko, WS Atkins
Partner since 2015
As a grammar school boy from Northern Ireland, I had two choices: lawyer or doctor, or I would get thrown out of the house. I did work experience at 15 at the local hospital. When I saw what the junior doctors had to do, I decided being a lawyer was for me.
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Rising Star: Charles Hayes, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Key clients: CVC Capital Partners, Charterhouse Capital Partners, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Middle East sovereign wealth funds
Partner since 2016
F1 is a big one for me [Hayes led on the Formula One sale to Liberty Media Corporation in September]. Particularly as a partner having tracked through the 2012 IPO attempt in Singapore. It’s a huge deal to do and one of great professional pride in the first few months of partnership.
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Rising Star: Victoria Sigeti, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Key clients: Cinven, 3i Group, Permira, General Atlantic
Partner since 2015
A key deal for me was the IPO of Spire Healthcare: I’d done the original buyout for Cinven in 2007 as a mid-level associate and then stayed with that deal until the IPO in 2014. That type of deal gets you under the skin of a business. It creates deep relationships with clients.
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Rising Star: Alison Smith, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Key clients: Anheuser-Busch InBev, Tesco, Smiths Group
Partner since 2015
As a teenager I was desperate to be a criminal defence barrister. I did work experience with a barrister when I was 16 and loved it. At some point after becoming more educated about the profession, I wanted to work as part of a big deal team.
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Rain men – goodbye Harvard Kool-Aid, hello plain speaking at Linklaters’ c-suite
With high-billing duo Charlie Jacobs and Gideon Moore taking the helm at Linklaters there is renewed swagger on Silk Street. Will it be enough to revive the City leader after a troubled post-Lehman run?
For a young South African who saw law as a stepping stone to business, Charlie Jacobs has had quite a journey. Something of an anomaly at Linklaters in the early 1990s, when even by the standards of the City elite, the firm was ‘stiff and English’, Jacobs found the place ‘a bit intimidating’ in the early years. But if he truly lacked confidence then, he hid it well. Now, after nearly a decade as Linklaters’ unrivalled corporate star, the youthful-looking 50-year old has this month begun his role as the City giant’s new senior partner for a five-year term.
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Leadership and the modern GC: a special report
We teamed up with Reed Smith to ask which skills the GCs of tomorrow will need to lead and what the future holds for in-house leadership training.
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- Taught leaders – executive training for the ambitious GC
- The next step – meet the GCs determined to seize leadership roles
- The art of leadership in Asia – an evolving role for legal heads
- Perspectives: Peter Wexler, Schneider Electric
- Perspectives: Louise Pentland, PayPal
- Perspectives: Penny Dudley, Bupa
- Perspectives: Maria Varsellona, Nokia
- Perspectives: Clare Wardle, Coca-Cola European Partners
- Perspectives: Sabine Chalmers, Anheuser-Busch InBev
- Perspectives: Albert Wang, 3M
- Perspectives: Suzanne Wise, Network Rail
- The Last Word – My way
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Taught leaders – executive training for the ambitious GC
Leadership training has until recently neglected the growing ranks of GCs. To begin our Insight special with Reed Smith, we assess the educational options for in-house counsel striving to meet growing skills demands
In 2012 the MBA degree established itself as the most popular subject of postgraduate education in the US, accounting for more than a quarter of all enrolments according to the US Department of Education. Along with the usual diet of macroeconomics, management theory and financial accounting, MBA programmes have ensured that those who seek to carve out a corporate career focus on one quality above all others: leadership.
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The next step – meet the GCs determined to seize leadership roles
An ambitious generation of in-house counsel is determined to take on leadership roles, despite corporate pressure to stay in the box. We ask GCs what it takes to break out as a leader
Are in-house counsel ready to be business leaders? It seems a strange question to ask given the level of education and training of most in-house lawyers and the dramatic expansion of the size and responsibilities of legal teams over the last 15 years.
And yet, leadership remains an issue that hangs ominously over the careers of in-house counsel. As they take on work that once would have gone to law firms and deal with mounting organisational, legislative and regulatory complexity they are often pushed towards the technically-demanding side of their legal role. Meanwhile, colleagues from finance, marketing or sales teams remain far more likely to be promoted to senior leadership roles within the company.
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The art of leadership in Asia – an evolving role for legal heads
What does leadership mean in a region where the role of the in-house lawyer is rapidly evolving?
‘Becoming an in-house lawyer has not traditionally been a desirable career path for Asia’s top graduates,’ says Amy Ng, general counsel (GC) for the Asia-Pacific region at global real estate company CBRE. ‘But we are seeing a lot of change now in the number of people leaving private practice to work for a business.’
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