Practical LawConferences

Lucinda Case is the Managing Director for Legal UK & Ireland for Thomson Reuters. Prior to taking on this role in November of 2016, she was Vice President, Customer Segments & Strategy. Previously Lucinda worked for four years in New York where she was Vice President, Editorial, for Practical Law US (a Thomson Reuters business) and then MD of the business.

Before moving to the US, Lucinda held management positions for Practical Law in London. She joined Practical Law in 2006 having worked in knowledge management for Clifford Chance and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. She qualified as a solicitor with Slaughter and May in 1988 and then spent time with UBS in London as an investment banker. A major driver for Lucinda’s career has been a belief that there is a more efficient way of delivering legal services, which is why she moved into knowledge management and then to Practical Law.

Lucinda is an advocate of greater diversity in the senior ranks of law firms and corporations. She is a member of the London Women’s Forum and a mentor for the Thomson Reuters Emerging Women in leadership scheme.

Daniel Danso serves as the Global Diversity Manager for Linklaters LLP.  During his tenure, the firm developed its first enhanced Global D&I Strategy and Action Plan, increased female representation at board to 42%, launched a global LGB&T initiative called Open 4 Business, and increased the Firm’s overall global D&I activity from 7 to 90 percent in three years.

He has experience of advising national and international companies in multiple industries, including media, the arts, travel, leisure, sports, and professional services as well as public and private third sector organisations across the UK.

Daniel wrote and produced the 2011 Workplace Equality Index (WEI) which is the UK’s only national external benchmarking tool dedicated to sexual orientation workplace equality. He was a judge for the Opportunity Now Global Awards for a number of years, and helped to start LGB&T rights organisations (similar to Stonewall UK) in Australia, the Republic of Ireland and advised on LGB&T initiatives in Asia through Community Business.

Daniel’s background is in Equalities Consultancy, training and social theory.  He holds a Master’s degree (MSc) in Gender and the Media from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Women’s Studies and Sociology from The University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), an Associate of Arts (AA) Degree in English and Music, and an Associate of Science (AS) Degree in Political Science.

Daniel is a music lover and writes vocal arrangements for an ACappella choir that he sings with around London.

Chris is a Partner in the Real Estate Practice. He is a highly experienced property development lawyer, specialising in major public sector projects. He focuses on major complex physical regeneration schemes advising on all aspects including commercial, legal, strategic and political advice. Chris leads delivery structures and the procurement, funding and development process. His understanding of the commercial and political pressures clients face allows him to work collaboratively with all stakeholders; even when they want competing outputs.

Karen Ngo qualified as a barrister in 1991 and as a solicitor in 1994. Karen joined Practical Law Commercial in April 2011 after practising for 17 years as a commercial in-house lawyer in the media industry, which included two years as Head of Legal at Copyright Promotions Group PLC, and ten years as Vice President, Legal and Business Affairs at Warner Bros Consumer Products, EMEA. Karen was appointed Head of Practical Law in-house in 2015 and more recently Director, In-house, of Thomson Reuters Legal UK & Ireland.

Kate’s career with the BBC started in 1968 as a studio technician at Radio Durham and Radio Brighton before producing shows for Radio Bristol.

Kate Adie soon switched to television journalism directing outside broadcasts and presenting in and around Plymouth, Southampton and Brighton. Kate later joined BBC TV News in London in 1979, working initially as a court correspondent.

Kate gained national prominence as a journalist with her reports from the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980. At that time it represented a breakthrough for women journalists as until then war zones and other hotspots were the preserve of male journalists. As that afternoon’s duty reporter, Adie was first on the scene as the SAS stormed the embassy. The BBC interrupted coverage of the World Snooker Championships and Adie reported live and unscripted to one of the largest news audiences ever whilst crouched behind a car door.

After the Iranian Embassy Siege, Adie was regularly dispatched to report on national disasters and conflicts throughout the 1980s, including the American bombing of Tripoli in 1986, and the Lockerbie bombing of 1988.

She was promoted to Chief News Correspondent in 1989 and held the role for fourteen years. One of her first assignments as Chief News Correspondent was to report the brutal suppression of the student uprising in Tiananmen Square. Other assignments followed including, The Gulf War, Conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the British evacuation of foreign nationals from Sierra Leone in 2000.

In 2003, Kate Adie withdrew from front-line reporting. She continues to work as a freelance journalist and presents From our own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4.

As an author, Kate’s books include:

• The Kindness of Strangers
• Corsets to Camouflage: Women and War
• Nobody’s Child
• Into Risk: Risking Your Life For Work

Her honours include three RTS Awards, The Richard Dimbleby BAFTA Award, and the Broadcasting Press Guild’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting. Kate Adie was awarded an OBE in 1993.

Before taking up leadership of the firm’s people and talent function globally, Laura specialised in securitisation and structured finance capital markets work. Laura has over 20 years experience at Clifford Chance. She is a member of the firm’s Executive Leadership Group, Executive Operations Group and leads the firm’s Global HR Leadership Group. In addition to heading strategy and operations for the firm’s HR function, she is extensively involved in the firm’s recruitment, development, diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Suki Binjal is the current President of LLG with a long standing and impressive history with lawyers in local government.  She routinely speaks at events and training sessions and her focus is to champion the role of lawyers in the public sector and to promote positive engagement across the broad spectrums of local authority governance and leadership.

She is an experienced public sector solicitor providing legal and strategic advice to local authorities and other public bodies. She also has experience of developing systems of ethical and good governance and establishing alternative service delivery models.

She is a Consultant and the Director of Belvedere Legal Services, currently working with the London Borough of Hackney as the Interim Director of Legal and Governance.

Her previous roles have included a directorship with the Commission for Racial Equality. She was also a founder member of a Women’s Refuge and also chaired the Portsmouth Equalities forum, as well as holding various Non-Executive Director roles.

She is an external advisor on the policy committee with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Suki is passionate about excellent public services and motivated to achieve results by being transparent and inclusive. She champions values that enhance social responsibility and accountability to the public purse.

Rob is the General Counsel and Company Secretary of The Crown Estate – a unique organisation which manages a £13bn Crown property portfolio; including assets as diverse as Regent Street and the UK seabed.  A former City lawyer, Rob is the strategic lead for legal, knowledge, information security and governance at The Crown Estate.

Rob is a vocal advocate for progress and change, and has been heavily involved in reshaping his organisation and function.  Outside The Crown Estate, Rob supports a number of initiatives that seek to promote equality in both the property and legal sectors; and The Financial Times have recognised him as one of the top young legal innovators in Europe.

Michelle Bramley is the Global Head of Knowledge for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP.  She is based in Freshfields’ London office. She was educated at Warwick University and qualified as a solicitor in England and in Hong Kong in 1991.  She manages Freshfields’ knowledge and information resource services globally and develops innovative solutions for service delivery . Her role also involves  leading a team of knowledge lawyers that are focused on delivering training and know how internationally as well as on a jurisdiction specific basis.  She also develops training and technology driven knowledge products for clients on an international basis.  Her main areas of focus are Brexit, business and human rights/modern slavery, commercial and financial institutions disputes, international regulatory investigations and white collar matters.  She has written on a wide range of investigations related topics and commercial litigation topics and is also a contributor to financial services investigations and enforcement (published by Bloomsbury), the UK chapter of Corporate internal investigations (published by OUP) and the chapter on Insurance Litigation in Insurance Disputes (published by LLP).

Susan is a partner at Hogan Lovells. She specialises in competition law, advising clients on some of the most complex and stressful issues they face.  She brings a wealth of experience from working in Brussels, Washington DC and London for more than 20 years.  Susan led the firm’s global competition practice for seven years, helping it become recognised as one of the top practices globally.  She is currently a member of the firm’s leadership team, managing the firm’s business in the UK and Africa.

Amanda joined Aviva in January 2018 as Head of Legal Operations based in London, following a stint in Amsterdam as Associate General Counsel, Digital Financial Services working in emerging markets at the MNO Veon and as a European Representative of the defensive patent pool, the Open Invention Network.

Having been General Counsel, Canonical – lead commercial sponsor of the open source operating system Ubuntu and open stack cloud partner – for 5 years, she set up and managed the global legal function. Her tech and digital experience is diverse and includes software, cloud computing, big data, IOT, new governance models in the sharing economy, e-business, data and privacy, FinTech and device manufacture and distribution.

Her experience of digital and IT law spans more than 15 years and a range of sectors, with roles as European Manager at DSG International where she was the first lawyer at the ISP, Freeserve (UK’s first and biggest .com IPO) and as part of the Digital Transformation team, UK Legal Director, Aramark and General Counsel Nicole Farhi & French Connection and General Counsel of a major Data Centre provider, her experience lends itself to her very commercial approach to legal advice.

As a solicitor, she is admitted in England and Wales and in Scotland and has a Masters in IP and IT law from Queen Mary and a Masters in Comparative Jurisprudence from New York University.  Amanda has been a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen Mary and was a founder of the QM Legal Incubator Q:Legal.

A regular speaker at international academic, legal and business conferences she has also written extensively on open source, tech and commercial law, and is the author of “E-Business: A Practical Guide to the Laws” (2 editions) and the commercial agreements section of the Oxford University Press’ “Free and Open Source Software, Policy, Law and Practice”.

Clare started her career in Brussels, after completing her legal training in London.  She realised very early on that she was never going to be a stellar lawyer and therefore chose to take a career path which was varied (beer lobbyist to I.P. crowdsourcing) and led her to her current position as CEO of Laurence Simons.  Laurence Simons, a specialist legal and compliance search firm, has been helping clients and candidates find each other for 30 years.

Donny Ching was appointed Legal Director of Royal Dutch Shell plc in February 2014 and is a member of the Executive Committee. He leads a team of almost 1000 staff in 48 countries.

Donny graduated with a law degree from the University of Southampton and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1988. He joined Shell Australia in the same year and re-qualified as a lawyer in Victoria, Australia in 1989. He then worked in different roles with Shell in Hong Kong, London and Singapore before moving to The Hague in 2011 to become the General Counsel of Projects & Technology.

Donny has been an active champion of diversity & inclusion in Shell. He participated in a video series by Catalyst on “Men who get it”, was a member of the group’s Asian Talent Council for many years, and has sponsored a number of Shell diversity & inclusion initiatives around the world.

Donny was born in Malaysia and is married with two daughters. In his diminishing spare time, he enjoys tennis, skiing and cooking.

Emily Cox is the director of public affairs at Virgin Money, where she led the team responsible for the Gadhia Review into the representation of women in senior managerial roles in the financial services industry. In January 2018 Emily became a member of the Chartered Institute of Insurance cross industry task force on insuring women’s risk.

Emily is a member of the board of the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative and the London Women’s Forum. Emily is also a member of the board at Gateshead College and the chair of the Remuneration Committee. She works part time and was on the Timewise Ones to Watch list 2017.  She was awarded ‘Woman of the Year’ in the Women in Finance Awards 2017

Dan joined BT in April 2010 as Group General Counsel and now serves as Company Secretary.

This was Dan’s third General Counsel role in the UK .  Previously he held that post at Misys plc (a software company) and Cable & Wireless plc. Dan is a Vice-Chair of the GC 100.

Dan is BT’s executive sponsor for LGBT+ Executives. He has appeared on the FT OutStanding list of the top 100 LGBT+ Executives each of the last three years..

Dan studied law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (JD Hons.1985); economics at UNC (BA Hons.1981); and international and comparative politics at the London School of Economics (Diplo. Distinction 1982).

Dan is an attorney (New York) and a solicitor (England & Wales).

Sarah is a Senior Associate in the Financial Industry Group at Reed Smith. Sarah’s practice focuses on a variety of finance transactions, including all types of securitisations (across consumer receivables, residential & commercial mortgage loans, auto loans and commodities), alternative finance & funds finance transactions, loan portfolio sales and debt restructurings. Sarah advises both lenders & borrowers, as well as other market participants including servicers, trustees and parties in all other agency roles.  Prior to joining Reed Smith, Sarah spent six years working for Northern Rock during the height of the financial crisis, where she worked on the first retail bank restructuring in the UK, and the subsequent circa £1bn sale of Northern Rock to Virgin Money.

Sarah is a senior Human Resources professional with over 30 years’ experience, including 15 years in the specialist area of Diversity & Inclusion.  She is one of the country’s most seasoned professionals in this field, is widely regarded as a thought leader and is frequently quoted in the media on issues such as women on boards, gender pay gap, social mobility, work-life balance, generational diversity and, more recently, on mental health.  She is leading PwC’s focus on inclusion both within the workplace and across the communities in which PwC operates.

She has featured in Personnel Today’s Most Influential People in HR list (ranked 28^th), was awarded Diversity Leader of the Year in the 2015 Excellence in Diversity Awards, and ranked #17 in the Accountancy Age Financial Power List 2018.   Her work on gender equality at PwC has been recognised externally with a series of accolades and Sarah herself was awarded an OBE in the 2018 New Year’s Honours List for services to women in business, equality, diversity and inclusion.

Claire Clarke is the first female managing partner at leading law firm Mills & Reeve. Claire, who has been a partner in the firm since 1999, is playing a key role in driving the firm’s 2020 strategy – an ambitious plan to increase turnover to more than £100 million, develop a reputation for innovation and be viewed as a truly national leader with a global reach. Claire is a corporate lawyer who specialises in advising universities and other education bodies and investors on all their corporate and commercial legal needs, including mergers, restructuring and national and international collaborations

Thomas (Tom) Cosgrove QC is a specialist barrister in the fields of planning and public law and a member of Cornerstone Barristers. Tom was appointed Queen’s Counsel in February 2017.

His legal work has a focus on representing clients at substantial planning inquiries and in judicial review and statutory challenges in the Higher Courts of England and Wales. His work typically entails leading multi-disciplinary teams of experts in relation to  major development and infrastructure projects. He provides strategic advice to the public and private sectors across a range of planning related areas including development (retail, energy, heritage, transport, commercial, residential and leisure), major infrastructure and government. He is a member of the Planning and Environmental Bar Association Committee.

Aside from Tom’s busy planning practice, he is an active chair of the Pupillage and Recruitment Committee at Cornerstone Barristers and sits on the Inner Temple’s Scholarships Interview Panel.  He recently completed a 5 year term as a member of the Bars Standards Board Professional Conduct Committee. He also acts as a barrister mentor for schools in conjunction with the Citizenship Foundation.

David Cruickshank is Chairman of our global organisation, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (Deloitte Global) and was elected into this role in June 2015 having served on our Global Board for eight years from 2007.  Prior to this, he was Chairman of our UK firm from 2007 – 2015.  Throughout his career, he has advised international corporate clients and some other private sector organisations.  He is a Chartered Accountant and a graduate in business and economics from the University of Edinburgh.

Outside the firm, among other things, David is a co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI), a Board Member of the Social Progress Imperative (which produces the country by country Social Progress Index) and, in the UK, he chairs the Board of Trustees of the Education and Employers Taskforce.

Dana Denis-Smith is the founder and CEO of legal business Obelisk Support, a tech-enabled business that matches work to 1,000+ highly skilled lawyers that want to work flexibly around their family commitments. Dana is also the founder of First 100 Years, a 5 year project charting the journey of women in the legal profession since 1919, and the Trustee of Spark21, a charity focused on ensuring gender equality in the workplace.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, Dana worked as a journalist. She later trained and qualified as a solicitor with Linklaters in London and Amsterdam. Dana has received numerous accolades for her work – being recognised as a legal innovator by Legal Week and the Financial Times and as entrepreneur by Management Today and Daily Mail. In 2018, she is a finalist for Legal Personality of the Year at the Lexis Nexis Awards. She holds an BSc in history and MSc in political economy, both from the London School of Economics. Married to a barrister and mother to a daughter, she now lives in London, having grown up in Transylvania, Romania.

Stephanie is the Founder and Managing Director of Inclusivity Partners, a boutique consulting firm that supports organisations to attract, retain and develop women.

Prior to inclusivity, Stephanie spent a decade and a half working for global recruitment firms, where she worked her way up to Director level, leading large revenue generating teams and working across various global locations. Other roles include coaching management teams, creating diversity strategy plans and training resourcing teams on inclusive recruitment.

Following her own career break, Stephanie identified a lack of awareness in the market place, specifically the resourcing industry (both internal and external), on the labour force patterns of women. She also identified that many organisations embark on well-meaning diversity programmes with no consideration to these patterns and its subsequent impact on the ability to attract and retain their women.

Inclusivity was born out of a desire to educate the market and to see real substantial change in organisations journey to Gender Parity.

Emma is the firm’s Chief Operating Officer with responsibility for the firm’s strategic approach to its operations, leading a variety of business services teams including legal service delivery, risk, project management, IT and innovation.  She is a member of the partnership committee and the executive committee of the firm.  She joined the firm in 2007 from Hamptons Group Ltd where she was a member of the board.  Prior to that, she undertook various legal, risk and operational management roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Chris joined Travers Smith in 1983 and was made a partner in 1987. Chris became the firm’s Senior Partner on 1 July 2013 having been Head of Corporate since 2003.  He founded the firm’s Private Equity Group, one of the constituent parts of Corporate, in 1996.

Chris has been a strong advocate of inclusion at Travers Smith and Chairs the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Board, which is responsible for co-ordinating and progressing what Travers Smith does to advance inclusion.

Chris also takes an active interest in education at both school and university levels, being a school governor, a regular participant in the Speakers for Schools programme, and both lectures and is a member of a number of committees at Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Julia is the Chief Strategy Officer at Baker McKenzie and sits on the Global Executive Committee working closely with the Chair an EC on the development, communications and implementation of Firm Strategy. This includes interpreting market trends, innovations, competitive opportunities and threats, then adapting strategy to these changing market conditions and client demands to achieve competitive market growth.

Julia is particularly interested in the way that innovation and technology are enabling Lawyers and other business professional to change the way they work and shape the future of the legal profession.

At Bakers, Julia is also a member of the BakerWomen Leadership Team, which operates as a think tank for the Firm on gender diversity and the routemap to achieve the Firm’s gender targets.

Julia is a Lawyer by background, working in private practice and spending time on secondment at a pharmaceuticals client.  She subsequently spent 7 years as a management consultant focussing on Strategy, Leadership and Client Relationship Development. Three of those years were spent living and working in the US (New York & Washington DC).

Julia holds a Law degree, MBA and postgraduate studies in Organisational Behaviour & Design and  Change Management and is an accredited business coach.

Daniel Greenberg is a lawyer specialising in legislation and the legislative process.  He served in the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel from 1991 to 2010.  From 2010 to 2016 he divided his time between serving as an adviser in the Office of Speaker’s Counsel, House of Commons and acting as consultant Parliamentary Counsel at Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP.  In August 2016 he was appointed Counsel for Domestic Legislation in the House of Commons.  He also serves as the General Editor of Westlaw UK Annotated Statutes and Insight Encyclopaedia.  He drafts primary and subordinate legislation in the UK, and has provided drafting and training services in Albania, Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Malaysia, Myanmar, South Georgia and elsewhere.  He is also the Editor of Craies on Legislation, Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary and Jowitt’s Dictionary of English Law, the Editor in Chief of the Statute Law Review and the Editor of Halsbury’s Laws on Statutes.  He is an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, a faculty member of the legislative drafting course of Athabasca University and a Director of the Constitution Reform Group.

danielgreenberg.co.uk

Stephanie Hamon is a Managing Director, Head of External Engagement, Legal for Barclays.  In conjunction with the Group General Counsel, Chief of Staff and Legal Executive Committee, her role aims to set and deliver the commercial management strategy for Barclays legal function which includes devising and implementing the commercial optimisation program.  The role is also responsible to set vision and clear objectives for the law firm panel and enhance the relationship model.  Prior to joining Barclays, she held leadership roles in the client service and business development function of several global law firms.

Stephanie brings with her more than 17 years’ experience gained working across an extensive range of legal and financial institutions, including Linklaters and Clifford Chance, in markets including the UK, Continental Europe and Asia Pacific.  Stephanie has extensive expertise in business development, strategy formulation and execution and client-focused relationship management all of which provides a perfect skill set for taking on this crucially important role in Barclays Legal.

External Engagement: A new team for Legal

In this newly created role, Stephanie leads a team responsible for defining and executing the legal function commercial management strategy, thus optimising our considerable external legal spend. They are aiming to ensure Barclays sends the right work, to the right firm at the right price.

After working in analyst and business planning roles for eight years, Lisa founded Acritas in 2002 to fill a gap in the legal services industry of robust global market research data combined with deep sector knowledge. During this time, Lisa has worked on projects with most of the world’s largest law firms, devising research programs to help clients achieve service excellence, brand strength, people engagement and international growth.

A decade ago, Lisa developed an annual global market study, Sharplegal, which evaluates trends in in-house counsel attitudes and buying behaviors, including the perception of law firm brands. It is the world’s most comprehensive annual study of the legal market, encompassing over $10 million worth of data.

Over the last three years, Lisa and her team have developed a second global dataset, Acritas Stars. This database of high-performing lawyers is driven purely by client nominations and encompasses an annual survey of those Stars to evaluate how well firms develop, engage, retain and attract Star Lawyers.

More recently, Lisa has turned her attention to developing analytics tools for legal departments to help them understand global patterns in legal spend and team size and to offer peer benchmarks. Lisa has also developed a suite of metrics, the PEER Model, to help legal departments drive high performance.

Joanne is a member of LBG’s Senior Leadership Group and the Legal Leadership team, a member of the Insurance Executive and Company Secretary to the Insurance Board. She leads a team of 43 people within Legal and Company Secretariat who are responsible for the provision of legal services to the Insurance & Wealth business and Group Pensions, deliver good corporate governance within the Insurance & Wealth Division and support the Insurance Board. The function is cross-divisional, supporting Wealth, Investments, Pensions (Individual, Corporate & Bulk Annuities), Protection and General Insurance.

Joanne has circa 20 years’ experience in financial services and has worked extensively across the Insurance sector.  Most recently before joining LBG in 2014, Joanne was Group General Counsel & Company Secretary of RSM Tenon Group plc (now part of Baker Tilly).  Before joining Baker Tilly, Joanne was General Counsel, Aviva Group Centre at Aviva plc and prior to that she was a Partner in the Reinsurance & International Risk team at Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, where she advised clients on a broad range of insurance and reinsurance matters.

Davinder is Head of UK Export Finance’s Legal Division. She has been with UKEF since 2009, and since 2014 has led a team of lawyers supporting the department’s civil, energy and infrastructure business. She joined UKEF from Linklaters’ Energy and Infrastructure Global Project Finance practice where she spent four years, most recently as Managing Associate. Davinder began her career with Herbert Smith, and read Law at King’s College London.

Natalia Nicolaidis is currently the General Counsel of the Investment Banking and Capital Markets Division at Credit Suisse.  In this role, Natalia advises on legal,  reputation and regulatory matters across the division.

Previously, she acted as Global Head of Investment Banking Department  for Risks and Controls at Credit Suisse, where she drove the re-engineering of key controls for the post-crisis environment.

Natalia serves as Trustee on the Credit Suisse EMEA Foundation and has served on the Diversity and Inclusion Council in EMEA.  She currently co-heads the Diversity and Inclusion initiative for the General Counsel Department at Credit Suisse.

Dr Tunde Okewale MBE is an award-winning barrister, who practices at the Doughty Street Chambers, is also listed in The Sunday Times 2017 ‘Alternative Rich List’ identified as having enriched the lives of others. Tunde established his practice in general and serious crime. A string of serious and  high profile cases have earned him a reputation as meticulous, diligent and . Tunde regularly undertakes appellate work in the Court of Appeal and the Administrative Court. In a case, the first of its kind, Tunde set a precedent by working with a University Pro Bono Society who referred the case of Dwaine George to the Court of Appeal. Tunde successfully overturned his wrongful conviction.Tunde is heavily sought after in areas of business and financial crime. He has advised a number of high profile individuals as well as companies in relation to money laundering and anti corruption regulations.His practice varies and sees him undertaking work in an array of fields. From advising crypto currency company, Stratis Platform, and the creation of alternative hedge funds, to appearing before sporting and professional regulatory tribunals. Tunde was a finalist for Young Legal Aid Barrister of the Year at the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards 2012.  He then went on to win a number of high profile awards for his work in law and also for his sustained social involvement.  These awards include, Junior Chamber of International London Ten Outstanding Young People Award in 2013, named as Diversity Champion at UK Diversity Legal Awards 2014 and in 2015 won the inaugural Chambers & Partners award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Diversity’.

Janvi Patel is a NewLaw pioneer and has been spearheading operational, structural and cultural change within the legal services industry since starting Halebury in 2007.  Her aim: to create an entirely original business model to service the needs of clients and lawyers at the senior end of the market. The firm now has a team of more than 30 senior in-house lawyers providing flexible resourcing solutions to FTSE 250 and SME businesses, strategic partnerships with clients such at BT, Sky and Virgin Media and is highly ranked by the Legal 500 for its work in Technology, Media and Telecoms.

As Chairwoman of Halebury, Janvi leads the firm with passion, vision and inspiration not only for genuine change within the industry from a service delivery point of view, but with regard to wider industry issues such as diversity and women in leadership. She is as a Board member on Thomson Reuter’s In-House Consultation Board, blogs regularly about growth and change within the in-house legal sector and is a regular contributor to Huffington Post.

Janvi has been featured on the UK’s first ever Power Part Time 50 list, has been awarded a prestigious Red Women Award through Red Magazine and was nominated for the Great British Entrepreneur and Asian Women of the Year Awards. She was also listed in City A.M.’s Women in the City Power list and recently won the WeAreTheCity – Rising Star Awards.

Leo Pieczanski joined BBC Worldwide in September 2013 and currently serves as EVP, Business Operations across Global Markets (Western Europe, CEMA and Asia), managing the Business and Legal Affairs team as well as the Affiliates team (20 people located in Cologne, London, Mumbai, Paris and Singapore). Her responsibilities include:

• Leading on major commercial deal delivery and all M&A activity within Global Markets;
• Advising the Senior Management team on all legal and commercial matters in Western Europe, CEMA and Asia
• Senior operational leadership responsibility across various domains, including strategic planning, governance and decision making, risk management and business continuity
• Advising the HR team on employment matters in Global Markets
• Board Director of various production companies (Rapid Blue in South Africa, Tower in Germany, BBC Worldwide in France).
• Oversight and management of all litigation
• Legal Lead on BBC Worldwide Customer Management Board (CMB)

Prior to joining BBC Worldwide, Leo was the UK’s Head of Legal at Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, and held senior positions at Turner Broadcasting and Vivendi.

She also previously worked in Silicon Valley at the law firm of Weil, Gotshal and Manges and is a US, UK and French qualified lawyer.

Helen Randall is a partner and  head of D&I at Trowers and Hamlins LLP where she spearheaded the firm-wide “TrowersIncludes” programme.  In her legal practice, Helen specialises in public/private joint ventures, procurement and governance.  Her voluntary work includes: Chair of Stonewall Housing (from August 20180), mentoring with the Girls Network, Visiting Professor of the University of Law and former Chair of the New Local Government Network policy think tank.

Mollie Stoker is currently the Director of Business Development (which includes responsibility for M&A) for Suntory Beverage and Food Europe, which operates a portfolio of non-alcoholic beverages including, amongst others, Lucozade, Ribena, Orangina and Schweppes. Mollie was previously General Counsel and Company Secretary of Lucozade Ribena Suntory, the UK and Irish business unit of Suntory Beverage and Food Europe.

Prior to joining Suntory, Mollie was in private practice in London as a corporate/commercial lawyer with a particular focus on M&A and capital market transactions.  She practised at Slaughter and May, K&L Gates and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.

Clare joined Coca-Cola European Partners as General Counsel & Company Secretary in May 2016. Between 2010 and May 2016, Clare has played a leading role in many development and expansion projects as Group General Counsel at Kingfisher – Europe’s largest home improvement retail group. Before joining Kingfisher, Clare was Company Secretary and General Counsel of Tube Lines Limited and prior to this she was Head of Post Office Ltd Legal. Clare was called to the bar in 1984, joined Lovells in 1986 and then moved to the Post Office in 1996.

Wayne heads up the Partner Markets legal team at Vodafone Group. He sits on the Leadership Team for the business as well as on the Group Legal Commercial Leadership Team. Wayne manages a team of lawyers and compliance officers to advise the Partner Markets business on all legal aspects of its commercial operations, on compliance, governance and risk management, as well as on strategy and brand protection.  In the Legal 500 UK Awards 2018, was an in-house winner of Individual of the Year.

Wayne was chair of the London branch of Vodafone’s LGBT & Friends Network in 2016 and 2017, playing an instrumental role in driving the diversity and inclusion agenda both within the Vodafone organization and externally.

A senior associate in the Project, Energy and Infrastructure Finance Group at Milbank, Suzanne advises project sponsors and lenders in the development and financing of first of their kind projects globally across a number of sectors.  Suzanne is passionate about promoting gender diversity, being one of the original 2014 co-founders and current chair of Women in Law London.  In 2017 she was awarded a WATC Rising Star in Law award and was a finalist in this year’s First 100 Years ‘Inspirational Women in Law Award’.  Suzanne was appointed to the Board of Trustees for the Aurora Orchestra in March 2017.

Lisa is the founder of She’s Back. Prior to taking a career break, Lisa had a 20 year career in professional services. She joined Arthur Andersen where she became a partner in 2001, specialising in leadership, communication and change management.

When Andersen was acquired by Deloitte in 2002, Lisa led a programme to address the challenges of merging two very different cultures. She later became Director of Brand and Communication.

Lisa founded She’s Back in 2014, in response to the lack of clear opportunities for women to return to professional life after taking a career break. Research undertaken in 2015 by She’s Back, the University of Edinburgh Business School and sponsors from five different sectors, highlighted the scale of untapped potential in this particular talent pool.

She is the author of She’s Back: Your Guide to Returning to Work a practical handbook to help women re-ignite their careers.

Melinda Wallman is one of the leading legal search consultants in the London market.  A former corporate lawyer, she moved into search in 1997.  Melinda joined Major, Lindsey & Africa in New York in 1999 and led the firm’s international expansion until 2007, founding the Hong Kong office in 2000 and the London office in 2004. Melinda focuses on law firm partner / team representation. She has placed partners and teams with most AmLaw 100 and UK top 20 law firms.  Melinda is passionate about helping women and minorities to achieve their career goals.  For her, every search is a diversity search and one-third of her placements are female.  In addition to search, Melinda works widely in the diversity and inclusion space. She runs the XX Advantage network and consultancy, is on the board of the Women in Law Empowerment Forum, and is now spearheading a women lawyer returnship programme, the Reignite Academy, with Lisa Unwin of She’s Back and Stephanie Dillon of Inclusivity Partners.

Geoffrey has had  a diverse career journey starting his working life in the entertainment industry then moving into health care, rail and media  for the last 20 years.  He has worked in Human Resources for the last 10 years of his career and has experience in Recruitment, Talent Management,  learning and development, Organisational Design and Diversity and Inclusion.

Currently he is the head  of Diversity & Inclusion at Thomson Reuters , where is works on strategy, culture and implementation of a D&I agenda and recently globally launched Thomson Reuters Diversity and Inclusion index,  and was awarded EY’s National Equality Standard.

Geoffrey is also the co-founder of   www.RockingUrTeens.com  a social enterprise  that introduces young people to the real world of work & aims to connect the teens to a positive and vibrant futures.  As well as sitting on the board of film production company  www.oneumbrellaproductions.com.

Geoffrey is committed to working to change the world of work so all people feel connect and understand the purpose of the work they are doing.

Carol Aldridge is Head of Knowledge Management and Information Services at independent UK law firm Burges Salmon LLP.

She works with the firm’s KM/Learning & Development partners, PSLs, Knowledge & Information Services, IT and Marketing teams to ensure knowledge-focused support to meet business objectives. She also works with Client Partners and Business Services teams to identify value-added services to enhance solutions for clients.

Carol trained and practised at Herbert Smith Freehills before joining Burges Salmon in 2000 as a Commercial PSL. She has been Head of KM since 2004.

Christina studied Jurisprudence at Oxford and qualified as a solicitor in 1991. She has developed and managed law firms including a virtual law firm. In 2011 she set up the Co-operative Legal Services family law offering, later becoming their Director of Policy. She is currently Director of Innovation at top 100 firm Cripps LLP.

Christina holds a range of public appointments including member of the Family Justice Council, trustee of LawWorks and council member for the Women Lawyers Division.

Christina is Vice President of the Law Society of England and Wales and will become President in 2018.

She is an award winning published author, speaker and lecturer and frequent media commentator.

Catherine is the Chief Counsel for the UKI Legal business of Thomson Reuters, where she sits on the Executive Leadership Team and manages a team of lawyers supporting the business including its print , online legal information and software solutions products. She reports to the US based General Counsel of the Legal Business unit.

Prior to this , Catherine was Associate General Counsel in the Financial and Risk business of TR, having originally  joined Reuters in 2001.  She trained and qualified into Disputes at Herbert Smith, and spent 3 years at Pinsent Masons specializing in IT disputes.

Catherine has extensive experience in the legal/commercial issues affecting global businesses including M&A/business integration, dispute resolution, HR/employee matters, data privacy (including GDPR implementation) ,  product launch/obsolescence and complex commercial agreements from both the sales and supplier perspective.

Caroline is a financial markets litigation and contentious regulatory specialist with a particular focus on wealth management firms and complex products sold to high net worth investors. Caroline has held a number of senior leadership roles. She is currently a member of Simmons & Simmons International Executive Committee, having previously sat on Simmons & Simmons’ Board and its partnership selection committee. She also oversaw its eDiscovery Solutions business from 2012-2017.

Ritva Sotamaa was appointed Chief Legal Officer of Unilever in February 2013 and has over 25 years of experience as a global legal executive. Ritva is responsible for the company’s Legal, Intellectual Property and Compliance functions and is a member of Unilever’s Leadership Executive.

Ritva was born in Kankaanpää, Finland in 1963 and earned a Master of Laws from the University of Turku, Finland. She has trained on the bench (judge qualification).

Prior to joining Unilever, Ritva spent most of her career within the healthcare industry. She has worked extended periods of time in global corporations in Finland, USA, Germany and United Kingdom covering a broad range of legal matters, managing multinational teams and operating as part of business executive teams.

She was global General Counsel for Siemens Healthcare from 2009 to 2013, based in Erlangen, Germany. Between 2003 and 2009, she held several General Counsel roles at GE Healthcare, mostly based out of Wisconsin, USA. Ritva started her legal career in Finland in 1989 at Instrumentarium Corporation, a Finnish publicly listed healthcare company, as legal counsel for the company’s international business. Between 1996 and 1998, she was Legal Counsel for Partek Corporation and returned to Instrumentarium in 1998 as General Counsel, in which position she served until the company was acquired by GE in 2003.