Charmian Averty
General Counsel, Which?
Charmian joined the Consumers’ Association (Which?) in March 2015 as the group’s General Counsel, heading up the In-House Legal and Corporate Governance teams. She is also company secretary to Which? Limited, the Consumers’ Association’s main commercial subsidiary.
Which? is the largest consumer body in the UK. The group operates as a social enterprise with one overriding purpose: to make consumers more powerful. Profits from its publishing business and other commercial operations are used to fund its charitable research, policy and campaigning activities.
Charmian was previously the General Counsel for the Friends Life Group, the FTSE 100 life insurer (now part of Aviva), where she sat latterly on the Executive Committee and was responsible for the legal and secretarial functions. Charmian joined the business immediately following its listing in 2008 and helped guide it through three acquisitions, a UK re-domiciliation and corporate restructuring over a four year period. Charmian started her career as a corporate finance and merger and acquisitions lawyer, working first at Dechert LLP and then Slaughter and May.