Marco Boldini
Director – European regulatory counsel
ETF SECURITIES (UK)
Marco Boldini serves as European regulatory counsel at ETF Securities, an asset management house focused on exchange-traded funds (ETFs), exchange-traded commodities (commodity ETCs) and exchange-traded currencies (currency ETCs) with offices in Jersey, London, New York, Sydney and Hong Kong. Based in London, Boldini is responsible for overseeing all regulatory functions across Europe and analysing the impact of emerging regulations. He is also chair of ETF Securities’ MiFID II committee, a member of its worldwide risk and compliance committee and leads the company’s advocacy and lobbying efforts by engaging with various European regulators.
Boldini joined ETF Securities’ five-person legal team in 2013 as regulatory counsel and was responsible for designing and leading its regulatory function across the UK, US and Hong Kong. He also developed a company-wide regulatory tracker to monitor new regulations relating to its various products, operation and clients. Prior to joining ETF Securities, Boldini worked at a number of international banks, including as legal counsel at State Street Bank from 2010-13, where he oversaw corporate governance.
As an associate in the regulatory department of Gianni, Origoni, Grippo, & Partners in Milan, Boldini was seconded to Credit Suisse Italy from 2009-10 where he launched the bank’s payment services directive control across Italy prior to the introduction of formal regulation in Italy; helped to implement anti-money laundering directive changes relating to tax amnesty; and designed and delivered a training programme on regulatory issues for its 200-member sales team. From 2008-09 he was seconded to Merrill Lynch as compliance officer responsible for designing and implementing policies and procedures to ensure MiFID compliance.
Boldini began his career as a trainee lawyer and lobbyist at Bernardini de Pace in Milan in 2005 and qualified at the Milan offices of Norton Rose in 2008. He regularly writes for the financial press in Europe and has been called as an external specialist before a number of international bodies. He is qualified in Italy and the UK, where he is both a solicitor and barrister.
Head of emerging markets legal EMEA
BARCLAYS
Amol Prabhu has a cross-product advisory role within Barclays’ emerging markets investment banking business across Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
He works with a variety of stakeholders in defining and implementing the strategic direction of the bank, and provides legal, wider risk management and reputational advice on new opportunities and transactions.
Career milestones include leading a team that executed substantive transactions for Barclays, including the International Development Agency’s partial guarantee of the Republic of Ghana’s debt issuance, Dubai Ports’ pre-IPO convertible sukuk, Petra Diamonds’ senior leveraged pan-African secured second lien notes and Ukrainian Railways’ loan and debt financings.
‘Take responsibility for your own career and have patience.’
During his 12 years at Barclays, Prabhu initially covered loans, leverage finance, distressed debt and securitisation across the UK and Europe, which led to an internal business secondment in the real estate finance team in 2005. Then, as the Middle East gained prominence, he supported debt capital markets, Islamic and structured finance across the Gulf region, which saw him seconded to Dubai in 2007. Subsequently, as Barclays expanded into emerging markets, his responsibilities grew.
Prabhu currently sits as a steering committee member of Barclays’ EMBRACE multicultural network and prior to joining the bank, worked at Linklaters and Allen & Overy in London and Hong Kong.
On career progression, Prabhu says: ‘Take responsibility for your own career, be authentic, gravitate to what you enjoy, seek out opportunities to develop, be a team player, be realistic, take counsel from those you trust, work hard… and have patience.’
Jarlath Pratt
Assistant general counsel
GIC
Travers Smith-trained Jarlath Pratt was one of the most cited counsel in this year’s report, with a host of high-profile referees, including Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) partners Gavin Williams and Patrick Mitchell, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s David Higgins and Tim Wilmot, Proskauer Rose partner Matt Rees, and Hellman & Friedman managing director and general counsel (GC) Stuart Banks.
Described by Higgins as having a ‘keen eye for the detail of a transaction’ while ‘deftly bridging the legal and commercial’, Pratt is responsible for delivering legal support to the special investments arm of GIC across EMEA, comprising the private equity, infrastructure and private debt groups of the sovereign wealth fund.
‘Has a keen eye for the detail of a transaction while deftly bridging the legal and commercial.’
Notable mandates for Pratt at GIC include advising on GIC’s acquisition of a 28.5% interest in Rothesay Life from Goldman Sachs in 2013, the buyout of the RAC from The Carlyle Group as part of a partnership between GIC and CVC Capital Partners in 2015, and GIC’s bid alongside EDF Invest to acquire the UK government’s stake in rail operator Eurostar, which involved extensive due diligence and negotiations. Prior to joining GIC, Pratt worked at Barclays Capital, where he supported the private equity and infrastructure teams.
HSF’s Williams says Pratt is a ‘truly outstanding’ GC, adding: ‘Knowing what questions to ask advisers is a big part of what marks out exceptional in-house lawyers from the run of the mill, and Jarlath has this instinct in spades.’
Proskauer’s Rees adds: ‘He gets behind the numbers and adds value where many lawyers fear to tread. He is approachable, fair-minded and has a huge amount of integrity. He keeps to his word and doesn’t play the silly games that so often get in the way of getting things done.’
Tepo Din
EMEA head of litigation, enforcement and investigations
BNY MELLON
Recruited by BNY Mellon in January to the prominent position of litigation, enforcement and investigations head across EMEA, Tepo Din is recognised by peers for his industry knowledge on emerging regulatory risk.
He joined BNY from funds giant BlackRock, where he served as director for legal and compliance since 2013. Significant legal issues at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, during Din’s three-year stint included its decision to join a group action comprising 80 investors suing Volkswagen over allegations that the car maker failed to disclose its diesel emissions scandal soon enough.
Din previously spent three years gaining regulatory experience at the Financial Services Authority, under the leadership of then enforcement head Margaret Cole (now general counsel at PwC).
Din was part of a team that dealt with the politically-charged task of changing the agency’s image from light-touch body to a tougher regulator for the post-Lehman era. He is further lauded for his work on the Barclays Libor investigation during his time at the regulator, which led to a £290m fine levied on the bank.
Having spent his early career at the highly regarded banking dispute teams at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Stephenson Harwood, Din is cited by Berwin Leighton Paisner partner Nathan Willmott as someone who ‘understands regulatory issues inside-out’.
Willmott adds: ‘He has a strong instinct for how the regulator thinks and how to respond to issues when they arise. He is also very well connected in the industry.’
Head of risk, Europe
CROMWELL PROPERTY GROUP
Robin Macpherson is described by one nominator as ‘a lawyer with a great reputation who is definitely on an upward trajectory’. Previously head of legal for large corporates and sectors, structured finance and products at The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), he joined European real estate investment manager Valad (now Cromwell) as head of risk in September 2016. His new role, which combines general counsel (GC), compliance officer and head of risk responsibilities, was created by Australia-based Cromwell Property Group, which acquired Valad in 2015.
It represents, Macpherson says, an important shift in how companies are thinking about risk. ‘At financial institutions you typically find different departments dealing with legal, compliance, risk and regulatory issues. As a result, things can fall between the stools or you can end up operating with three different taxonomies of risk, which starts to get confusing. Besides, there is rarely such a thing as a purely legal risk. A loan agreement, for example, will have embedded within it provisions about how the bank actually operates that loan. Those provisions may not be understood by the business itself and a large part of this operational risk will consequently be overlooked by the legal team. One of the advantages of working at a smaller business is that it is feasible to combine these functions into a single point of contact so we can think much more holistically about the risks affecting our business.’
Along with his five-person team, Macpherson is responsible for a range of issues, from overseeing Cromwell’s risk management framework and corporate governance across Europe to implementing new frameworks in response to forthcoming regulatory changes like the UK Senior Managers and Certification Regime and the European General Data Protection Regulation. He also reports to the chief executive of Cromwell’s European business as part of the nine-person European management group. If this were not enough to keep him occupied, he has also been busy helping Cromwell maintain its momentum on the deal front. The company launched its first open-ended fund a month after he joined and has since closed a number of deals.
Macpherson says his upward trajectory – he qualified in 2004 and worked as a banking associate at Travers Smith before joining RBS in 2009 – has been largely the result of good luck and good timing. ‘RBS had been very forward-thinking in its approach to risk, which meant I had a much broader skillset than the typical funds lawyer or real estate lawyer in my age group. I sat on various executive steering groups and committees, which provided me with a lot of fairly senior experience. But I was very lucky to have joined a team that went on to grow rapidly, which meant there was more opportunity to take on new responsibilities and rise up through the ranks. There is often a wealth of talent below GC level that finds itself unable to move upwards and it is rarely the case that these people are any less talented than the more senior figures in their team.’
Alex Ainley
Global head of capital markets legal
UNICREDIT
Alex Ainley has been dubbed one of the most impressive legal players in the capital markets community and built a reputation for robust management of a 40-strong team at UniCredit’s London-based capital markets legal division.
A former Clifford Chance lawyer, he started his in-house career at Japanese investment house Nomura in 2003, followed by a four-year stint at HSBC’s capital markets division, before joining UniCredit in 2010.
At UniCredit, Italy’s largest bank by assets, Ainley has had ample opportunity to demonstrate his worth, including advising on the bank’s recently-announced €13bn rights issue – its third major cash injection since 2008. The rights offer forms part of a turnaround plan under chief executive Jean Pierre Mustier after stock dropped more than 45% last year. Other legal hurdles posed for the bank included its ranking as the sixth-weakest bank in stress tests of the eurozone’s largest lenders last summer.
The bank is currently going through a rationalisation to focus on its core business, a push that will involve the closing down of branches, cut thousands of jobs, and shed its bad loan portfolio.
Assistant general counsel
KPMG
As one of the in-house advisers to Through the Looking Glass, KPMG’s 2016 global study of the general counsel (GC) role, Misha Patel has given much thought to the qualities required in the senior legal role. ‘You may move in-house on the basis of your technical expertise,’ says Patel, ‘but you’re involved in so much more than just the law that non-legal skills are essential. You need a matrix of skills, including decisiveness, communication, business understanding, financial numeracy, integrity, management ability and many others. These are the skills that have and will in future define the real leaders of the in-house profession.’
For the last six years, Patel has been assistant GC at KPMG. She now supports KPMG GC Jeremy Barton, who joined from Boston Consulting Group in 2015. Unlike his predecessor, Barton sits as a board member and part of the KPMG executive function. This, says Patel, has been a welcome development. ‘The in-house team sees all the issues the business grapples with on a day-to-day level. Not many other functions have such exposure and insight across the entire business, [and] joining discussions at the embryonic stage means business will reach out to you – whether concerning new products, new markets, or new geographies – and in helping shape major transactions and key operational decisions.’
Patel, who trained at Clifford Chance and spent five years in the firm’s corporate practice, made the decision to move in-house after a secondment at the International Centre for Financial Regulation, a government-sponsored entity established by Lord Davis, then chair of Standard Chartered. ‘As the company’s legal counsel, I worked alongside the CEO, sat on the board and had real strategic influence over the business’s operation and direction. I dealt with all sorts of issues ranging from legal to non-legal which really helped build my skillset.’
Patel’s advice to those tempted to move in-house is to nurture the skills of a senior leader before they are called upon. ‘You don’t have to be a GC, or at the top table to work on your leadership abilities. Get to know the right people, understand work politics and how best to get things done. And always seek experience or opportunities in order to hone [broader] skills and find ways to understand how an organisation works.’
Alistair Houghton
Head of legal, central functions
TSB
Touted as a ‘star’ in executing large-scale transactions by Hogan Lovells corporate partner John Allison, former Travers Smith lawyer Alistair Houghton sits within TSB’s 20-strong legal team under general counsel Susan Crichton.
Houghton has led on a host of major deals for the bank, including its £3.3bn acquisition of Northern Rock mortgages and loans from Cerberus Capital Management in 2015. Acting alongside Crichton and Allison, the deal involved negotiating a service agreement with UK Asset Resolution’s mortgage servicing arm, to ensure continuity in service for borrowers. The deal also saw TSB become the mortgage lender to an additional 34,000 UK homeowners, marking a significant milestone in its growth strategy.
Houghton is also credited for helping navigate the bank through challenges when it separated from Lloyds Banking Group in 2014, followed by the flotation of a 25% share of the TSB business that same year.
‘Alistair is a star in pure corporate M&A.’
Following TSB’s initial public offering, Houghton advised on the legal aspects of the bank’s takeover by Spanish group Banco Sabadell.
Houghton is currently responsible for a wide range of legal divisions within the bank, including corporate, litigation, insurance, competition, insurable risk, and treasury issues, while he also serves as the relationship manager for panel firms.
Allison comments: ‘I’ve known Alistair for quite a number of years He has been the main person leading on big-scale transactions for the bank. He and Susan are a great team – she is a fantastic operator and has the confidence of the board, but in terms of legal specialism Alistair is a star in pure corporate M&A. At the same time, he’s doing a mini-GC role.’
Bethany Walker
Legal counsel, execution and workouts
HAYFIN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
Part of the legal team at specialist investment fund Hayfin Capital Management for over four years, Bethany Walker is described by one private practice partner as ‘incredibly intelligent, excellent on detail’ and someone who possesses ‘very good awareness of the commercial boundaries of Hayfin’. Previously a lawyer at Macfarlanes and trained at DLA Piper, Walker specialises in loan transactions at Hayfin, which provides lending solutions to European corporate clients and investment management services to institutional clients. One Macfarlanes partner adds: ‘She was someone who we were very sorry to see leave for Hayfin.’
‘Bethany is incredibly intelligent, excellent on detail.’
In January, British Columbia’s giant pension fund bought a majority stake in Hayfin, which is one of the UK’s fastest-growing financiers and specialist debt providers, in a deal worth around £215m. Clients of the lender include Racing Post, Sunseeker and meat-substitute food manufacturer Quorn. Hayfin’s management and employees will retain their shareholdings following the deal.
Richard Stewart
Associate general counsel, UK and Europe
BANK OF MONTREAL
Richard Stewart, who leads the Bank of Montreal (BMO)’s capital markets team in Europe, is responsible for providing legal support for all BMO European securities operations, including investment banking, corporate banking, M&A, trading products and structured products.
He is described by one partner as ‘an exceptional lawyer’ who ‘understands that the role of an in-house lawyer goes far beyond legal advice and is regularly called upon by senior business leaders for advice on non-legal matters’, and ‘combines extensive leadership experience on complex transactions gained from 14 years in private practice with a can-do attitude, which invariably gets the best out of the team he is working with’.
‘He understands that the role of an in-house lawyer goes far beyond legal advice.’
Stewart joined BMO in 2013 from Berwin Leighton Paisner where he was an associate director with transactional experience in private equity, corporate finance and M&A. He cut his teeth as a corporate finance associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Selected for BMO’s 2016 senior leadership programme, which helps leaders to develop the skills they need to effectively lead in today’s competitive and complex marketplace, Stewart has restructured the legal team during his time at BMO to support the business and serve customers on a global level.