FT Innovative Lawyers Summit

Stuart Barr leads product strategy and design at HighQ. He is a technologist who is passionate about transforming the way people work through the application of collaboration and process tools inside the enterprise to enhance productivity, knowledge sharing and communication. He has been designing and building web applications since the late 90s and has a unique background in technology, design, strategy and consulting in the legal, professional services and social computing sectors. Before joining HighQ in 2009, Stuart previously worked at Headshift, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Hays plc and The Met. Office.

Jonathan Brayne is a partner in the London office of the international law firm, Allen & Overy. He is Chairman of Fuse, Allen & Overy’s tech innovation space, where clients, technology providers and A&O collaborate in the development of tech-enabled solutions to legal market challenges. He is also Chairman of aosphere, an A&O affiliate which provides alternative solutions for legal risk management.

Mr Brayne joined Allen & Overy in 1978. He was one of the founding partners of the firm's New York office between 1985 and 1988 and of its Hong Kong office from 1988 to 1997.

He practices in the field of energy and infrastructure projects, often advising on the financing of those projects. He has advised sponsors, financial institutions and governments in that field. He has also advised on tax structured and general banking transactions and on a wide range of capital markets instruments, both debt and equity.

Mr Brayne was previously an elected, non-executive member of the Allen & Overy global board; on the board of its documents-to-data affiliate, docGenix; and Chairman of its Innovation Panel, its global banking practice and, subsequently, of its India Group. He led the team which developed and, in late 2013, launched Allen & Overy's flexible resourcing business, Peerpoint.

Michelle Browdy became IBM’s Senior Vice President, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, and General Counsel on January 1, 2015.  She reports to IBM’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ginni Rometty.  Michelle is responsible for IBM’s global legal, security, privacy and compliance activities and policies, as well as IBM’s environmental and government and regulatory affairs functions.

Michelle most recently served as Secretary to IBM’s Board of Directors from 2012-2014.  Prior to that position, she served for five years as IBM’s worldwide head of litigation, overseeing IBM’s intellectual property, antitrust/competition, employment, class action, securities and commercial litigation globally.

Since coming to IBM, Michelle has served as a Board member of the Pro Bono Partnership, Vice President of the Executive Committee of the Yale Law School Association, and was appointed by the Chief Judge of New York State to the Commercial Division Advisory Council in 2013.  She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Before joining IBM, Michelle was a partner with the law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP, trying a variety of complex cases across the United States.  She has also acted as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Illinois and taught Trial Advocacy as an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University School of Law. 

Michelle received a B.S.E., summa cum laude, from Princeton University; an S.M. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University; a J.D. from The Yale Law School, where she served as Managing Editor of The Yale Law Journal; and clerked for the Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court.  She is admitted to the bar in Illinois and New York State, and is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Sabine Chalmers is Chief Legal Officer of Anheuser-Busch InBev. Sabine is a US citizen of German and Indian origin and holds an LL.B. from the London School of Economics. She is qualified to practice in England and New York State. Sabine joined the company in January 2005 from Diageo plc where she was General Counsel of the US and Latin American businesses. Prior to Diageo, she was an associate at the law firm of Hogan Lovells in London, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. She is a member of the Advisory Board of Directors of Grupo Modelo. Sabine also serves on several professional councils and not-for-profit boards, including the Association of Corporate Counsel and Legal Momentum, the United States’ oldest legal defense and education fund dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Coty Inc. and the Royal National Theatre London.  

Karl is CEO of Riverview Law and has a long pedigree in starting, growing and managing successful companies.
 
After reading law at Birmingham University, Karl joined Guinness Mahon Investment Management in 1985 and in 1987 was Money Observer’s top-performing UK unit trust fund manager.
 
In 1989 he set up CRT Group plc, a consultancy, recruitment and training business. Under Karl’s leadership CRT grew to a market capitalisation of over £600 million, sales in excess of £400 million with 2,500 employees in over 200 locations. In 1996 CRT sold 50.1% of its equity for £109 million.
 
Karl set up AdviserPlus Business Solutions, a leading advisory outsourcing organisation providing HR, and H&S solutions to organisations of all sizes, in 2001. Karl remained as owner and a non-executive until the sale of AdviserPlus in 2016.

Riverview Law acquired Kim Technologies (formerly CliXLEX) in September 2015. Kim is a Knowledge Automation and Workflow Platform applicable to all sectors and functions. Through its no-code configuration model Kim enables knowledge workers to take control of their critical business processes to improve decision making, speed and effectiveness. Kim does this utilizing its patent pending artificial intelligence, assimilation and data management capabilities. Karl is Chairman of the Board of Kim Technologies. The Kim Technology powers the Riverview Law Virtual Assistants and is applicable across all sectors and functions, in any country.

Kate is the Group General Counsel of Lloyds Banking Group. In this role Kate is responsible for advising the Board and Senior Executives on legal matters, leading the legal team of c.300 people and has responsibility for managing the Group’s external legal relationships.

Kate is co-chair of Breakthrough, the LBG’s women’s network which has a membership of c.15,000 people. She is trustee of Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales, sponsor of “Legal in the Community”, the legal function’s Responsible Business programme and a supporter of the charity “Suited & Booted”, which helps men who are out of work to find employment.

Kate joined the Group Legal team at Lloyds TSB Group in 2005. Prior to being appointed Group General Counsel, Kate held a number of senior positions including Deputy Group General Counsel and General Counsel for Group Legal. Before joining Lloyds TSB, Kate was a corporate lawyer at Linklaters specialising in M&A transactions and before that she ran a commercial art gallery in London for 5 years.

Ricardo Cortés-Monroy IV is a Senior Vice President and the Chief Legal Officer at ‎Nestlé since 2011. Mr. Cortés-Monroy is also the Chairman of the Board at the European General Counsel Association (composed by group CLOs of the largest global multinationals headquartered in Europe), and an Advisory Board Member at Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession. He became a professor at the Master in Law program at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2011 and is a regular visiting lecturer at US and European universities. He started at ‎Nestlé as Legal Counsel of ‎Nestlé Chile in 1995 after 9 years of practice in a law firm and another multinational.

Mr. Cortés-Monroy is also a Member of the Board of Directors at Nestlé Skin Health SA, Nestlé Health Science SA, Nespresso S.A., Galderma Pharma S.A.,  Fonds de Pensions Nestlé, and ten other companies. Additionally, he is a member of the Chilean Institute of History. He earned postgraduate diplomas in both Business and Management at the University of Adolfo Ibáñez, Chile, in 1997, and Corporate Tax Law at the Catholic University of Chile in 1999. J.D. University of Chile and admitted to practice in Chile (1986, as a barrister) and Switzerland (2000, as a jurist). In the context of Nestlé’s YOUth initiative, Mr Cortés-Monroy is an active mentor of 4 young Swiss female attorneys-at-law, both in-house and external counsellors.

John Croft is one of the co-founders of Elevate, the business of law provider of strategy, operations, technology and talent for legal departments and law firms. With operations on four continents, Elevate brings together consultants, lawyers, process engineers, and technologists to improve efficiency, quality and outcomes for customers worldwide. Ranked by Chambers & Partners as a top global legal service provider and by Inc. magazine as the #53 fastest growing private company of 2016, Elevate is a trusted provider to Global 1000 corporations and to the law firms that serve them. John has been advising law firms and legal departments on innovation for thirty years.

Reggie leads DocuSign’s award-winning legal team in driving acceptance and adoption of digital signatures and transactions across business, industry, and the public sector. Prior to joining DocuSign, Reggie served as general counsel and EVP at Zynga where he helped manage hyper-growth from 114 to 3,600 employees, successfully brokered 48 acquisitions that led to the expansion of 32 offices worldwide, and oversaw the third largest technology IPO in Silicon Valley history. In 2010, Reggie was an award winner of The Recorder’s “2010 Attorneys of the Year.” In 2012, Reggie’s team was named “Most Innovative Legal Team” by Inside Counsel Magazine. In 2013, the Silicon Valley Business Journal honored Reggie as “General Counsel of the Year.” In May 2016, Reggie was named “In-House Impact” General Counsel by The Recorder legal publication. In December 2016, Reggie was named “Innovative General Counsel” by the Financial Times North America Innovative Lawyers report. Before Zynga, Reggie spent 9 years at Yahoo! where he served as vice president, network quality and operations, and associate general counsel managing Litigation and Security for the company. Prior to Yahoo!, Reggie was a partner at Hancock Rothert & Bunshoft (presently known as Duane Morris) where he litigated cases in contract, patent, and insurance matters. Reggie received his JD from Tulane School of Law and his AB with Honors in European History and Sociology from Harvard University. Reggie joined DocuSign after taking a year off from work, during which he backpacked around the world with his wife Rebecca and their four sons. The highlights of this adventure were wrestling tigers and riding elephants in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.

Maaike de Bie is the General Counsel of Royal Mail.  She obtained her legal degrees in the Netherlands and Canada and is qualified to practise as a solicitor in both New York and the UK.  Maaike started her career in private practice in New York moving to London 6 years later where she has held a number of senior in-house legal  roles at the EBRD, GE and EY.  In addition to her professional career, Maaike trained as a coach in 2005.  Maaike uses these skills both professionally and personally as well as pro-bono through the Aspire Foundation Mentoring Scheme.

Wim Dejonghe is Senior Partner of Allen & Overy LLP. He was Global Managing Partner from 1 May 2008 until 1 May 2016. He was Managing Partner of the Belgian offices from 1996 until his election as Global Managing Partner in May 2008. Up to that date, he also co-headed A&O's global corporate practice. Wim Dejonghe joined Allen & Overy as a partner in 2001 having previously been a partner at Loeff Claeys Verbeke since 1993. He co-wrote the book "M&A in Belgium", the only in-depth and comprehensive legal guide to Belgian M&A transactions. Mr Dejonghe practised corporate law in Belgium and also practised law in the USA (New York and Washington) and Spain (Barcelona). He received his law degree from the University of Louvain (KUL) and subsequently worked as an assistant at the University of Louvain (KUL) at the International and European Law Department.

John WH Denton AO is a Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Corrs Chambers Westgarth, the leading Australian independent law firm. Under John’s leadership and strategic direction, Corrs was voted as the number one law firm in the Asia Pacific (and in Australia) in the 2016 Legal 500 Client Intelligence Report. The firm is also acknowledged as the most globally connected law firm based in Australia. A legal expert in the areas of government, international trade and investment and labour relations.  He is also a national business leader and an international adviser on global policy. In June 2016, John was named as the First Vice-Chairman of the Paris based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The appointment is the first time that an Australian has held such a position. John is Co-Chair of the B20 “Financing Growth and Infrastructure” Taskforce; Chair of the BCA’s Global Engagement Task Force; member of the BCA’s Business Reputation Workgroup; director of the Australian Ballet; board member of Asialink; member of the Leadership Council on Cultural Diversity; board member of Teach for Australia; Chairman (emeritus) of the Experts Group on Trade and Investment in Indonesia and a founding member of the Australia China CEO Roundtable meetings. He is one of two originating members of the B20, the business reference group of the G20 and is a Member of the Australian B20 Leadership Group. He was also a member of the Australian Government advisory panel overseeing the development of the ‘Australia in the Asian Century’ White Paper. A former diplomat, John was a Panel Member of the Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness and has been Chairman of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Australia for more than a decade. In 2015 John was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to the business community, the arts and the rights of refugees.

Kristina Ehle is a partner at Morrison & Foerster’s German office in Berlin. Her practice focuses on advising clients in the information technology, e/m-commerce, media (music, film, TV, gaming), and consumer electronics / products industries on commercial transactions, intellectual property issues (in particular copyright issues) as well as IT, Internet, consumer rights and commercial law matters.

Ms. Ehle regularly drafts and negotiates a wide variety of transactions for such clients, including software, games and app development and licensing agreements, production, licensing and distribution agreements for digital content and services (including SaaS and other cloud solutions), online marketing agreements, supply, distribution and retailer agreements for goods and services, including advice on general terms and conditions (B2B and B2C). In addition, she advises clients on setting up and structuring new business models and routinely provides intellectual property and commercial law advice in corporate transactions regarding the above-mentioned industries.

Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster, Ms. Ehle worked as an in-house counsel at Bertelsmann Music Group, as head of the eBay Group's contract department in Germany and as a lawyer at the Berlin office of a large international law firm.

Neville Eisenberg is the Senior Partner of Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP (BLP), an international law firm based in London.  Neville joined BLP in 1989 as a corporate lawyer before becoming Managing Partner in 1999 and leading BLP’s development into an international firm of 820 lawyers with 14 offices in 12 countries across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. On 1 May 2015 Neville became Senior Partner.  He is Chairman of Lawyers On Demand, a contract lawyer business owned by BLP, is on the London Council of the Confederation of British Industry and is a trustee of a number of charitable foundations.  A regular speaker on law firm strategy, innovation and the future of legal services, Neville is leading a review at BLP focussed on future models of legal service delivery.

Hywel Evans is the Global Co-General Counsel for Global Banking & Markets (GB&M) and has recently also taken on the role of Global Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Legal at HSBC. As COO Hywel is focused on better connecting the Legal function and embedding more consistent and efficient ways of working. With technology playing a more important role than ever, Hywel is also looking at how technology can help HSBC evolve its legal operating model. Hywel has over 20 years’ experience in the Financial Services industry that has included roles with NatWest Markets and Deutsche Bank, prior to joining HSBC in 2010.

Richard is the Senior Partner of Pinsent Masons and Chairs the Board. Richard has ultimate responsibility for the leadership of the firm.  He is responsible for ensuring delivery of PinsentMasons strategy - to be seen as international market leaders in key global sectors - and for sustaining the firm's culture and values. Richard has held several senior leadership roles at the firm including leading the firm's Global Construction Advisory & Disputes practice, the Projects & Construction practice and prior to that, he was the Head of the Asia practice.  In addition, in 2008, he led the launch of the firm's Energy Sector.  Richard's experience includes big ticket international arbitration and litigation work and of advising owners and constructors of major infrastructure projects on risk management and dispute avoidance/resolution during project construction.  In his career at Pinsent Masons, Richard has advised on some of the largest rail, road, power, airport and port projects in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.   Historic experience also includes the Channel Tunnel.

Chris Fowler is General Counsel TSO &  UK Commercial at BT Group PLC in London.  Chris is responsible for the setting, oversight and authorisation of BT’s group wide contractual risk frameworks globally  as well as the legal and contract professionals supporting the buying, selling and launch of telecommunications services across BT's enterprise business units in the UK. In addition Chris is accountable for the provision of legal support to BT’s Technology and Services division which employees 13500 people globally and is responsible for BT’s core telecommunications and internal IT infrastructure as well as BT’s research and development activities.

The transformation work undertaken by Chris was recognised by the Association of Corporate Counsel as one of its 2013 Value Champions and by the FT Innovative Lawyers Award 2015  where BT Legal was recognised as the most innovative European in-house legal team. Chris was called to the Bar by Lincolns Inn  in February 1994. Chris has previously worked in BT’s offices in New York, Tokyo and Milan and prior to joining BT worked in the Legal Departments of Volkswagen Audi Group and Experian.

Heidi K. Gardner, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession and author of the recently-released book Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos (Harvard Business Press). Gardner also serves as a Harvard Lecturer on Law, and Faculty Chair of the school’s Accelerated Leadership Program and Sector Leadership MasterClass executive courses. Previously she was a professor at Harvard Business School.  

Gardner’s research received the Academy of Management’s prize for paper with Outstanding Practical Implications for Management. She has authored or co-authored more than fifty book chapters, case studies, and articles in scholarly and practitioner journals, including several in Harvard Business Review.  Her first book, Leadership for Lawyers: Essential Strategies for Law Firm Success was published in 2015.

Professor Gardner has lived and worked on four continents, including as a Fulbright Fellow, and for McKinsey & Co. and Procter & Gamble.   She earned her BA in Japanese from the University of Pennsylvania (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa), a Masters degree from the London School of Economics, and a second Masters and her PhD from London Business School.  She was recently named by Thinkers 50 as a Next Generation Business Guru.

Mark I. Greene serves as Head of Cravath’s Corporate Department and Leader of its International Practice.  Mr. Greene’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and securities matters, including advising on cross-border transactions, private equity deals, complex restructuring transactions, proxy fights, takeover defense, hedge fund activism and global securities offerings. 

Mr. Greene has long been recognized as one of the world’s leading M&A practitioners by, among others, Chambers USA, Chambers Global, The Legal 500 United States, The Legal 500 Latin America, IFLR1000, and PLC Which Lawyer?  In 2016, he was named a “Dealmaker of the Year” by The American Lawyer and an M&A Trailblazer by The National Law Journal. 

Mr. Greene received a B.A. from Cornell University and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.  After a clerkship with Hon. Charles Legge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, he joined Cravath in 1994 and became a partner in 2001.

Also known as the Mexican lawyer with a French name in the City of London, Yves is the managing partner of the London office of the Mexican independent Law Firm, Nader, Hayaux & Goebel (NHG) (www.nhg.com.mx), the only Mexican law firm with an office in London.  Yves leads NHG’s insurance and reinsurance practice and innovation efforts.

Yves has more than 25 years advising foreign investors into the Mexican market and in their Mexican and Latin American related operations and transactions, as well as Mexican investors in their international operations and transactions.

Yves is recognized as one of Mexico’s leading lawyers in corporate, mergers and acquisitions and banking and finance and as one of Latin America’s leading experts on insurance and reinsurance, where he frequently handles high-end transactions, restructures and regulatory projects, as well as complex claims for leading insurance and reinsurance companies in Mexico and throughout Latin America.

Yves has been actively working with The City of London and the UK to develop further business relationships with Mexico and in 2011 founded the Mexican Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain (www.mexicanchamberofcommerce.co.uk) in 2011, of which he is currently the Chairman.

Yves enjoys tweeting under @YHayaux and writes a blog for The HuffPost Mexico http://www.huffingtonpost.com.mx/bloggers/yves-hayaux-du-tilly/ on law, insurance and international affairs.

Kevin Hewitt is the head of FTI’s Corporate Finance practice in EMEA and is based in London. Kevin has 27 years of experience providing refinancing and restructuring solutions to a wide range of stakeholders. Prior to joining FTI, Kevin spent nine years as a partner at Ernst and Young. Kevin has performed advisory services for numerous industries, including energy, financial services, retail, technology, healthcare and manufacturing and has advised lenders, private equity sponsors, and debtors in a variety of engagements. Kevin also performed a 2 year secondment to HSBC in their workout team.

Recent experience:

• Advising a UK monoline insurer on the run off of £38 billion of financial guarantee obligations.
• Advising a UK monoline insurer on the restructuring of $900 million of financial guarantees to a structured life reinsurance business.
• Advising the Board of an overseas banking institution on a non performing loan portfolio of €3 billion.
• Advising a UK monoline insurer on the restructuring of the Punch Group Plc A securitisation vehicle with net debt of £1.5 billion.
• Advised the senior lenders owed £950 million by the Cooperative Group in the context of the £1.5 billion recapitalisation of the Cooperative Bank.
• Financial adviser to Ambac Assurance UK in relation to the run off of £38bn of financial commitments.
• Advised the senior and subordinated lenders (£345m of debt) of a UK gas turbine power station through a capital restructuring resulting in the lenders acquiring the assets and ultimately disposing of the business to recover full value.
• Advised the senior lenders (owed £550m) of a coal fired power station through complex negotiations as part of the restructuring of the British Energy Group of companies.
• Advised the lenders of a DEK 1.5bn global manufacturer of wind turbines through a period of crisis stabilisation, detailed business review and M&A process.
• Advised the senior lenders of a CHF1.6bn global epoxy resin manufacturer through a complex restructuring including providing strategic, financial and market analysis.
• Advised the lenders of a £140m European insurance broker through a complex restructuring involving ground breaking negotiations with the pensions regulator.
• Advised the senior lenders of a £2.4bn quoted global electronics and precious metals group through a refinancing of facilities. Advised the lenders of a leading independent oil and gas services business in the Middle East, Latin America, UK and Europe through crisis stabilisation, detailed business review and sale to a trade buyer. 
• Advised the European management team of a global power generation Group of companies on the refinancing of a gas fired plant in the Netherlands.
• Advised the board of a public bio-fuels business during the construction phase of a 250,000 mt bio-diesel processing plant. Agreed ongoing banking facilities with the company’s lender to complete plant construction.

Nick Hourigan is a Senior Managing Director in FTI Consulting’s Data & Analytics practice and is based in London. He brings 20 years’ experience in performing large volume transaction-based analytics for the financial services and other industries in litigation and investigation matters.

Nick has extensive experience of managing complex projects and capturing, analysing and presenting large disparate sets of financial, operational and transaction data, with record sets in the billions.  Nick is a specialist in developing innovative technical solutions to financial markets analyses which have been accepted by various regulatory authorities. He manages a team specialising in data capture, analysis and presentation, including through rapid development of web based technologies that provide access without geographic limitations.

Examples of his experience include:

Data analytics expert in a matter involving the complex insolvencies of a Middle Eastern bank and related Cayman entities. Nick’s London team built a sophisticated asset tracing tool to automate analysis and present compelling visualisation of the ultimate disposition of very large sums.

Overall data analytics leader for a complex investigation involving over a dozen different accounting systems, including two very large SAP ERP repositories.

Investigation and subsequent ongoing weekly analytics of trading exposures for a leading global financial institution with offices in London.

Representation of multiple financial services firms before the US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority related to historic exchange-traded and OTC options positions reports to the Options Clearing Corporation. Analysing hundreds of millions of daily client and firm option positions spanning five years and multiple trading and client stock recording systems, Nick’s team identified the delta between the but-for and actual reporting scenarios, and participated directly in discussions with regulators.

In an analysis for a multi trillion dollar custodial bank, Nick developed a methodology to discern ordinary course transactions in a securities lending program where the client had instituted a gating policy to manage redemptions and protect cash collateral pool liquidity. This innovative methodology controlled for analytical ‘noise’ due to market price changes in his analyses, which were used to respond to SEC inquiries and formed the basis of his client's $50 million plus accounting charge.

Investigation and reconciliation of payments spanning three years to ensure the integrity of financial transfers between a core SAP repository and an Icelandic bank’s accounting platform.

Nick co-led a multi-billion dollar mortgage backed securities litigation for a global bank, managing the data analytics component of a case, overseeing the integration of enormous data sets related to origination, loan performance, and bid and closing tapes for the issued securities. His team built a secure web tool to manage workflow, standardize review and automate responding to 50,000+ plaintiff allegations.

Brent Irvin joined Tencent, a leading global Internet company, in 2010. He is currently Vice President and General Counsel, overseeing all legal matters, including intellectual property, litigation, privacy, compliance and public policy. Prior to joining Tencent, he worked at a leading Silicon Valley law firm, specializing in M&A and technology transactions, with a special emphasis on Internet companies. He received his JD from Stanford Law School, an MA in Asian Studies from Yale University and a BA in History from Carleton College.

Brad Karp is the Chairman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, a position he has held since 2008. Brad is one of the country’s leading litigators and corporate advisers, with extensive experience successfully defending financial institutions and other companies in “bet the company” litigations and regulatory matters. Prior to being named chair of Paul, Weiss, Brad chaired the firm’s Litigation Department.

Brad has been profiled as one of the leading lawyers in the United States by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The American Lawyer, Chambers, The Lawyer (U.K.), Crain’s, The National Law Journal, The New York Law Journal, Lawdragon, Best Lawyers in America, The Legal 500, Euromoney Institutional Investors, Best of the Best USA, Law360, and Benchmark/Institutional Investor.

For the past several years, Brad has been named one of the Most Influential People in the Boardroom by the National Association of Corporate Directors. In 2014 Crain’s named Brad one of the Most Influential New Yorkers. In 2011, Lawdragon named Brad its “Lawyer of the Year.” For the past several years, Chambers has selected Brad as the only “Star” in its Nationwide Securities Litigation category. Best Lawyers named Brad its 2014 “Banking and Finance Litigator of the Year,” and its 2012 “Securities Litigator of the Year.” In 2012, The Financial Times selected Brad as one of the 10 most innovative lawyers in the United States. In 2013, Benchmark Litigation/Euromoney selected Brad its “Litigator of the Year.” In 2013, the New York Law Journal awarded Brad its first-ever Impact Award, in recognition of his “significant and lasting impact on the legal community in New York.”

Brad has lectured on business litigation, securities litigation and corporate governance at Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School and NYU Law School. Brad is active in the community, serving as a director/trustee of the Legal Action Center, the Riverdale Country School, Mount Sinai Hospital, The Partnership for New York City, the Harvard Law School Leadership Council, the Executive Committee of the New York City Bar Association, the American Constitution Society, Junior Achievement Global, Practicing Attorneys for Law Students Program, Inc., the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, American Friends of Hebrew University, the New York Bar Foundation, the Program Advisory Board of the Brennan Center for Justice, the Mark Messier Foundation, the Best Lawyers Advisory Board, the Economic Club of New York, the Federal Bar Council Second Circuit Inn of Court, the Union College President’s Council, and the United States Supreme Court Historical Society. Brad is a founding member of the PriceWaterhouse Leaders Council examining financial services industry regulatory reform, and is a member of The New York City Bar Association Task Force on New Lawyers in a Changing Profession. Brad currently is chairing the 2016 Harvard Law School Annual Fund.

Brad graduated with honors from Harvard Law School in 1984, and has spent his entire professional career at Paul, Weiss.

Neal Katyal is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University and a Partner at Hogan Lovells.  He previously served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States.  He has argued 34 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, with 32 of them in the last 8 years.  Most recently, Neal argued the “Travel ban” case on behalf of the State of Hawaii against President Trump in the Court of Appeals.  In the 2016-17 Term alone, Neal argued 7 cases in 6 separate arguments at the Supreme Court, far more than any other advocate in the nation (the next highest number, 4 arguments, was reached by two attorneys).  At the age of 47, he has already argued more Supreme Court cases in U.S. history than has any minority attorney, with the exception of Thurgood Marshall (with whom Neal is currently tied). His numerous distinctions include: Edmund Randolph Award (highest civilian award given by U.S. Department of Justice), 40 Most Influential Lawyers of the Last Decade Nationwide by National Law Journal (2010), and 90 Greatest Washington Lawyers Over the Last 30 Years by Legal Times (2008).  He has appeared on virtually every major American news program, as well as on Stephen Colbert and House of Cards.

Senior Executive with more than 20 years of successful experience with global Fortune-100 companies.

Currently Senior Vice President EMEA Legal for Dell Technologies. Benedikte is part of Dell’s senior management and is leading a team of 100 lawyers and commercial managers covering 123 countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa, representing 25% of Dell’s global activities. She leads InSpace for Legal globally, a program established to drive an innovative culture. She was recently named by the FT as one of the most innovative lawyers in Europe. She is also the Co- Sponsor for WoMen in Action in EMEA.

Prior to Dell, Benedikte worked for Symantec, where she was a member of the EMEA management team and the VP of EMEA Legal.

Previous roles have included establishing and leading the VERITAS legal department in EMEA prior to Symantec’s acquisition of VERITAS in 2005; EMEA Counsel at GE Information Services; and European Legal Associate at Apple Inc. based in Apple’s European headquarters in the UK.

Benedikte received her Master in Law degree from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She is fluent in Danish, English and Swedish, and also speaks French, German and Norwegian. 

James is the Executive Partner of Mishcon de Reya and Head of Mishcon Private, sitting on the management board.

He acts for a wide variety of clients such as high profile individuals, corporations, families, family offices and charities. James is unusual in that he provides a broad range of legal expertise which includes defamation, privacy, employment, commercial disputes and litigation. James believes in the importance of a long-term advisory role with clients and acts for many as their trusted advisor.

Legal 500 have listed him as a legal expert in commercial litigation, employment and defamation and Chambers & Partners describes him as a "lateral thinker with innovative ideas".

Susan Mac Cormac is a partner in the Corporate Department of Morrison & Foerster’s San Francisco office. She serves as Chair of the Social Enterprise and Impact Investing group, and Co-chair of the Energy and Clean Technology Groups.

Ms. Mac Cormac has extensive experience representing startup to late-stage private companies primarily in the clean technology, renewable energy and sustainable space. She provides corporate and finance advice in connection with equity and debt financings, mergers, acquisitions, asset purchases and sales, reorganizations, and joint ventures. She regularly advises boards of private and public companies, special committees, and CEOs on corporate governance as it relates to sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issues. In addition to her representation of nonprofit corporations involved with Sustainability and CSR, providing advice to their boards on fiduciary issues, conflicts of interest, and other corporate matters, she has deep experience and expertise ensuring energy, sustainability, and other investments have positive impact – through use of new corporate forms, hybrid or “tandem” structures with non-profits and for-profits and alternative debt and equity instruments.

In 2015, the Financial Times named Ms. Mac Cormac the Most Innovative North American Lawyer for her work championing impact investing and social enterprise legal innovation. Ms. Mac Cormac was named by California Lawyer in 2012 as a California Attorney of the Year for her effective legislative change in California as co-chair of the Working Group for the Flexible Purpose Corporation and again in 2016 for her innovative work in impact investing, sustainability, and corporate form. In 2016, Ms. Mac Cormac was honored with the National Public Service Award by the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section for providing significant pro bono legal services. The Recorder also named Ms. Mac Cormac to their 2016 Women Leaders in Tech Law list based on her “game-changing, law-shaping, market-moving work in and around the technology sector.” Clients say that “you cannot get a better corporate counsel,” and that Ms. Mac Cormac “‘understands the big picture, could not be more responsive and understands the business.” She was recognized by the Daily Journal on several Top Lawyers in California lists including Top 100 Lawyers (2012), Top Female Lawyers (2011, 2012, and 2016), and Top 25 Clean Tech Lawyers (2011). Ms. Mac Cormac was selected by her peers for Best Lawyers in America (2011–2017) and was named Best Lawyers’ 2014 and 2016 San Francisco Energy Law “Lawyer of the Year.” She was also recognized by clients in Legal 500 United States (2009–2015) in the areas of venture capital and emerging companies, project finance, and renewable and alternative energy.

After working in New York for three years, Ms. Mac Cormac joined the firm as an associate in 1997 and became a partner in 2001. Ms. Mac Cormac was born in Davidson, North Carolina, and graduated in 1988 from Williams College with a degree in Political Economy. She received her J.D. and LL.M. degrees from Duke University School of Law in 1993. Ms. Mac Cormac lives in the Presidio National Park with her husband and three young boys (Eddie, Alex, and Matthew).

Ms. Mac Cormac was a founding board member of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, is a member of the Board of Directors of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), the Ceres President’s Council, and the Board of Directors of Earth Genome Project, and an advising board member of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s Strategic Investor Initiative.

She has joined the faculty (teaching on the intersection of sustainability and fiduciary duties) at both the Stanford Director’s College and the Northwestern Corporate Counsel Institute and is an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, Boalt Hall, teaching a course on Social Enterprise. She is admitted to practice in both California and New York.

Rosemary Martin was appointed group general counsel and company secretary in March 2010. She previously served as CEO of the Practical Law Group, having spent 11 years with Reuters Group Plc with the last five years as group general counsel and company secretary. Before joining Reuters, Rosemary was a partner with Rowe & Maw (now Mayer Brown). She is an independent non-executive director of EY and a member of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Listing Group Advisory Panel and. She is also an advisory board member of the Oxford Internet Institute. She was a non-executive director of HSBC Bank Plc (the European arm of HSBC Group) until April 2016.

Yuto Matsumura is a partner of Mori Hamada & Matsumoto. His practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, corporate and securities laws, private equity, banking, and international dispute resolution. In particular, he has extensive experience in M&A involving banks and other financial institutions, and publicly listed companies, especially in the cross-border context.

He has been selected as a leading lawyer in Japan for corporate/M&A in The International Who's Who of M&A Lawyers, Chambers Global, Chambers Asia, PLC Which Lawyer?, IFLR1000 and Asialaw Profiles; for banking in The International Who's Who of Banking Lawyers and Asialaw Leading Lawyer; and for dispute resolution in Asialaw Leading Lawyer. He has assumed a leading role in a number of M&A deals that were selected as Japan deal of the year. He is officer of the corporate/M&A law committee of the International Bar Association.

He is a graduate of The University of Tokyo (LLB, 1996) and Columbia Law School (LLM, 2002). He has worked for Sullivan & Cromwell (2002-2003) and is admitted to practice in both Japan and New York. He served as visiting associate professor at the University of Tokyo Law School (2013-2016) where he taught corporate/M&A among other classes.  He is fluent in Japanese, English and French.

Jami Wintz McKeon is the Chair of Morgan Lewis, providing strategic direction to the largest law firm in the world led by a woman. Under her leadership Morgan Lewis has grown into one of the principal global providers of legal services, assisting clients throughout the United States, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. While Chair, she has continued her own legal practice counseling Fortune 100 companies — particularly those in the financial services and technology industries—on complex litigation and investigations. Jami has made exceptional client service the centerpiece of her work and her administration of the firm, and she is long-time advocate of diversity within the legal industry.

Jami has addressed numerous premier leadership conferences and industry events, including such gatherings as the American Banker’s Mentor Factor Women’s Conference, the Financial Times’ Innovative Lawyers North America Awards ceremony, the Global Law Firm Leaders Conference, the Big Law Business Summit hosted by Bloomberg BNA, and the Center for Women in Law’s Power Summit on Law and Leadership. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession. Chambers USA recently announced that Jami has made the shortlist for its Women in the Law Awards as "Inspiring Role Model in Promoting Gender Diversity in the Legal Profession.” Her many other awards and recognitions include a Financial Times Special Achievement Award, The American Red Cross Lifetime Achievement Award, and the United Way Women’s Leadership Initiative Award. Jami has a longstanding commitment to the Philadelphia community and currently serves on the Board of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. She resides with her husband and family in the Philadelphia area.

Zia Mody is the Founder and Senior Partner of AZB & Partners and one of India’s foremost corporate attorneys. She passed her law degree from the University of Cambridge in 1978 and was enrolled as an Advocate with the Bar Council of Maharashtra & Goa in 1978. She did her LLM from Harvard Law School and was then admitted as a member of the New York State Bar by examination in 1980. Zia worked as a corporate associate at Baker & McKenzie, New York, for five years before moving to India to set up practice, establishing the Chambers of Zia Mody in 1984, which then became AZB & Partners in 2004. The Firm has offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune with an integrated team of approximately 400 legal professionals. Zia’s abilities are recognized globally, as is reflected in her appointment as the Deputy Chairman and a Non-Executive Director of the HSBC Asia Pacific Board, a member of the Governing Board of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA), foreign arbitrator on the Panel of Arbitrators of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), a member of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal, Washington D.C. (2008-2013), and a Vice President and Member of the London Court of International Arbitration (2010-2013). Zia serves on various advisory committees of the Confederation of Indian Industry including its National Council and its committees on Corporate Governance, Financial Services, Capital Markets and Legal Services. Zia was a member of the Godrej Committee on Corporate Governance constituted by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. She was nominated to be part of the “Committee on Rationalisation of Investment Routes and Monitoring of Foreign Portfolio Investments” formed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India under the chairmanship of Shri K.M. Chandrashekar. She was appointed by the Reserve Bank of India in 2014 as a member of Committee on Comprehensive Financial Services for Small Businesses and Low-Income Households which was chaired by Dr. Nachiket Mor. Awarded the “India Managing Partner of the Year – 2016” by Asian Legal Business (Thomson Reuters), Zia features on Fortune India as The 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in India, for 2016. She is listed by Forbes India (2013, 2014 & 2015) as one of ‘India's 10 most Powerful women’; also listed by Forbes Asia as one of ‘Asia’s 50 Power Businesswomen’ (2015), it has been said that few of Zia’s peers can match her skills or take her on when it comes to acquisitions, joint ventures, company restructuring, foreign inward investment related practice and corporate law. She has been named as a Leading Individual for Banking, Finance, Corporate and M&A and Investment Funds in The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific 2016. Euromoney awarded her a Lifetime Achievement award – at Asia Women in Business Law Awards 2015. Among her many awards, Zia has received the “Outstanding Women Business Leader of the Year – 2013” award at India Business Leader Awards; also “Legal Icon of the Decade – 2013” and “Best M&A Lawyer of the Year – 2012” award at the Legal Era Awards and she has been voted as “Business Woman of the Year, 2010” by the Economic Times, for which she was felicitated by The Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF). She has also been voted by the Economic Times as one of the country’s most powerful CEOs (2004 to 2016), and as one of the 15 most powerful Indian women leaders in 2010-2014. She has been selected as one of the 25 most powerful women in business by Business Today in 2004-2014, and named one of India’s top ten most powerful women in business by Fortune Magazine in 2014. AsiaLaw Profile hailed her as one of ‘The Leading Lawyers - India’ in the fields of Mergers & Acquisitions, General Corporate Practice, Dispute Resolution, Corporate Governance and Capital Markets & Corporate Finance for 2013, while Asia Pacific Legal 500 and Chambers Global, have identified her as a leading individual in the Corporate Mergers & Acquisition, Private Funds, Private Equity, Litigation and Infrastructure Sectors. “Zia Mody is an obvious choice for many clients involved in large international M&A transactions” states IFLR1000. Zia has been nominated as one of the world’s leading practitioners by the International Who’s Who of Mergers & Acquisitions (2008 to 2015), Private Funds Lawyers (2008 to 2015), Corporate Governance Lawyers (2012-2015), Competition Lawyers (2017) and M&A and Governance Lawyers (2017). She has been selected as one of the world’s pre-eminent commercial arbitration specialists by the International Who’s Who of Commercial Arbitration (2012-2015) , one of the world’s leading litigation practitioners by the International Who’s Who of Litigation Lawyers (2016) and one of Who’s Who Legal’s – Thought Leaders, Arbitration (2017).

Gideon is Linklaters’ Firmwide Managing Partner, a role he has held since January 2016. In this role, he chairs the global law firm’s Executive Committee and is a member of its Partnership Board. Previously global head of the firm’s banking practice and co-head of its leveraged finance practice, he is one of the market’s foremost experts in leveraged and acquisition finance. As Firmwide Managing Partner, Gideon has led the development and implementation of a strategy focussed on delivery of best in class legal support and consistently excellent client service. Key to this objective is attracting, developing and retaining exceptional talent, fostering a culture of teamwork, innovation and entrepreneurialism and creating an environment where all people across the firm feel they belong and have a fair and equal opportunity to reach their full potential. A former barrister, Gideon joined DLA as a partner in London from Clifford Chance, before joining Linklaters as a partner in 1999. Gideon is a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and holds LLM and LLB degrees from the University of London.

Siobhán Moriarty is a graduate of University College Dublin and is admitted as a solicitor in Ireland and in England & Wales.  She held various positions in law firm private practice in Dublin and London, principally 7 years as a corporate lawyer with Clifford Chance, before joining Diageo’s in-house legal team in 1997.  Siobhán has done a variety of roles in Diageo, including Corporate M&A Counsel, Regional Counsel Ireland and General Counsel Europe, before taking on responsibility for leadership of the global legal team as General Counsel in 2013.  She is also a member of the Executive Committee of Diageo plc.  Siobhán is also the joint Executive Committee sponsor of Diageo’s diversity and inclusion agenda.  Siobhán has previously served for two years as a Diageo nominated non-executive director on East African Breweries Limited, one of the largest listed companies on the Nairobi Stock exchange.

Diageo is a FTSE10 company, listed on both the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and the New York Stock Exchange (DEO).  It is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands, including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, Buchanan’s and Windsor whiskies, Smirnoff, Cîroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.  Diageo’s products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world.  For more information about Diageo, its people, brands, and performance, visit www.diageo.com. Please also visit Diageo’s global responsible drinking resource, www.DRINKiQ.com, for information, initiatives, and ways to share best practice.

Alastair Morrison has been a Pinsent Masons Board member for 12 years and has responsibility for Client Strategy at international law firm Pinsent Masons.  Alastair is charged with advising the Board on the objectives, strategies and investments required to sustain the firm's relevance to clients.

He is responsible for working with the firm's key relationships to deliver integrated value propositions and solutions relevant to clients.  Through working closely with some of the firm's most significant clients he has a wealth of experience and a breadth of knowledge of the demands and issues facing General Counsel and their teams thus enabling him and the team to create a range of innovative legal delivery models.

He has spoken at a number of international conferences on the challenges faced by clients and how these challenges are shaping his firm and the legal profession more widely.

Alastair is a construction lawyer by background and is ranked as an Eminent Practitioner in his field by Chambers & Partners UK 2017 Guide.

Clients seek out Harriet Pearson’s extensive experience in every aspect of cybersecurity and privacy law, policy, and compliance – topics that today occupy senior managers in all sectors.  They also value her ability to design and implement solutions to legal and business issues that leverage over two decades of multi-disciplinary experience. Among her clients are some of the world’s largest technology, media, professional services, communications, financial services, and energy companies. In 2016 Harriet was named leader of Hogan Lovells Innovation and New Ventures, the firm’s global program to catalyze and incubate new businesses and approaches. She is Chambers-ranked and was recently named North America’s “Legal Innovator of the Year” by the Financial Times (2016); Cybersecurity and Privacy Trailblazer by the National Law Journal (2015); and one of the 500 “Leading Lawyers in America” by LawDragon (2015-17).  An honors graduate of UCLA School of Law and Princeton University, before law school Harriet briefly worked as an engineer. She joined Hogan Lovells as a partner in 2012 after a 19-year career at IBM where she served as that company’s first and longstanding chief privacy officer and security counsel. Harriet co-founded and currently co-chairs the Georgetown Cybersecurity Law Institute and serves on the American Bar Association President’s Cybersecurity Task Force and the Advisory Boards of the Future of Privacy Forum and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.  She is a founding member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, on whose board she served for a decade.  

Claudia Parzani has been a partner in Linklaters since 2007 in the Capital Markets department and from November 2016 she is, at a regional level within Linklaters, the managing partner for Western Europe. Before joining Linklaters, Claudia gained experience working with one of the first English law firms to operate in Italy and later became a partner in a competing American firm. Specializing in equity capital markets and in public M&As as well as in corporate governance matters, Claudia has assisted and advised many of the most important Italian banks and companies. In 2016 she was selected as female lawyer of the year by Top Legal (an award that she obtained also in 2012) and has been listed by TopLegal amongst Italy’s most powerful lawyers “under 50”; for 2 years running (both in 2015 and in 2014) she has been listed amongst Italy’s most powerful lawyers by Legal Community. In 2015 she was awarded “Lawyer of the Year – Equity Capital Markets” at the Legal Community Finance & Tax Awards, “Best in capital markets: equity” at the Euromoney European Women in Business Law Awards and was the recipient of The International Alliance for Women (TIAW) World of Difference 100 Award -  Community category for her significant contribution to the economic empowerment of women. In 2013 she was nominated by Financial Times as one of the 10 most innovative legal professionals in Europe.

Always interested in the theme of diversity, Claudia was member of the board of Valore D from 2009, the year of its foundation, to November 2016 and from June 2013 to June 2016 she was appointed as president of Valore D, the leading association in Italy for prominent Italian corporates and financial institutions committed to supporting and increasing female leadership and promote the goal of increased female participation in the corporate world. She is the founder of “Breakfast@Linklaters”, an initiative to develop a communication network amongst female executives. In 2017, Claudia contributed to the launching in Italy of the Inspiring Girls campaign, an innovative mentoring program connecting female role models and young girls around the world. She is the Chair and the ambassador of the initiative for Italy.

Claudia was a non executive member of the board of directors of Il Sole 24 Ore S.p.A. and Moleskine S.p.A. and currently she is Chair of Allianz S.p.A. and Deputy Chair of Borsa Italiana S.p.A. (the Italian Stock Exchange) and external member of the Board of Directors of Politecnico di Milano.

Dawn Smith is EVP and Chief Legal Officer of McAfee, one of the world’s largest, pure-play cybersecurity companies. Dawn is a proven business leader in Silicon Valley. Most recently she served as SVP, Chief Legal Officer, and Secretary to the Board of Directors at VMware. While there she led the legal and government relations and compliance organization globally. During her long tenure as a senior leader at VMware, Dawn’s team collaborated to win across all aspects of VMware’s strategic initiatives, ultimately powering the company’s growth, including in cloud services and mobility. After she graduated from Stanford Law School, she joined Morrison & Foerster to practice corporate and securities law, advising start-up tech companies on all aspects of their business. Dawn then became partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati with a focus on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and debt financings, board advisory, and corporate governance. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association and the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. Dawn’s leadership earned numerous recognitions in the field of law, including: Top 50 Women Lawyers in the U.S. by the National Diversity Council, Value Champion Award by the Association of Corporate Counsel, and Most Innovative In-House Legal Team in North America by the Financial Times. Dawn earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy (where she also received the Vice Admiral Lawrence Award for most outstanding woman athlete for her accomplishments in varsity fencing). As a newly commissioned officer, Dawn was chosen for the highly competitive naval nuclear submarine program founded by Admiral Hyman Rickover, and while in the Navy she earned an MBA from Providence College.

Matthew Solon is a managing director in the Strategic Communications segment at FTI Consulting, and is based in London. He works in the Employee Engagement & Change Communications practice.

Matthew has more than twenty five years’ experience. He works in a wide range of companies, professional firms and public authorities, designing and delivering interventions that help to increase client and customer loyalty, improve communication and enhance the quality and impact of leadership and management. Matthew is also a skilled facilitator of away-days, corporate events and strategy brainstorms.

With boards, chief executives, senior leadership teams, partners, and senior fee earners Matthew’s approach is always to help his clients enhance their skills and further increase the value of the contribution they make to their own organisations.  

As well as his work in training and consultancy, Matthew has a career as an award-winning writer. He is a regular contributor to a range of different periodicals writing on subjects that include leadership, conflict management and employee engagement. In the broadcast media, Matthew works as a scriptwriter and has had more than fifty programmes produced by BBC Radio 4 and the World Service. His drama documentary, The Day that Lehman Died, won awards in the UK and in the USA.

Recent clients include: The House of Commons, BlackRock, Schroders, Deloitte, Insight Investment, Baillie Gifford, Clyde & Co, Herbert Smith Freehills , Reed Smith, Pictet and Northrop Grumman.

Key areas of expertise: Leadership and management, Communication skills, Managing within a matrix environment, Pitching skills, Media skills, Client and customer care, Business development, Sales and Project management.

Derek Southall is a high profile and very well connected figure in the legal technology, innovation and digital marketplaces, and was recently described as the “Doyen of legal IT and Innovation”.

Derek has spent nearly 25 years in a range of leading strategic roles for GowlingWLG for most of this time as a Partner and Head of Strategic Development. Derek started his professional life as a corporate lawyer but since 1999 he has immersed himself in the world of Technology and Productivity, Digital, Innovation, Strategy and Knowledge Management as well as organisational and market change. During this time Derek has delivered a range of strategic projects both for the firm and its global clients (the latter ranging from some of the biggest legal teams in the world to the very smallest).

Derek has spent over 17 years working both within the business and with major global clients in developing strategies and implementing a range of business improvement projects relating to technology, digital, compliance, risk, and productivity. The firm has grown from £27mil when Derek joined to over £400mil at today’s date. Derek has played a key role in supporting this growth through the dotcom era, multiple recessions, internationalisation, head quarter moves and several waves of technological changes.

Derek has led the firm’s innovation strategy and in 2016 the firm was named by the FT as the second most innovative law firm in Europe. Derek has also been the driving force behind winning a range of other awards.

The Financial Times ranked Derek as one of the top three most innovative lawyers in the UK in their first study into the UK market and he was recognised in 2017's prestigious Acritas Stars database as a one of few Star Lawyers delivering outstanding service. Derek has also been relationship partner for a long list of major household name clients in a range of sectors including Automotive, FMCG, Financial Services, Food and Drink, Fashion and Construction.

In April 2017 Derek stepped down from the GowlingWLG partnership to set up Hyperscale Group Limited of which he is Chief Executive. Hyperscale Group delivers a range of services in relation to Innovation, Digital, Futures, Strategy, Operational Excellence and more. The purpose of the company is to help businesses to maximise their potential in an increasingly digitised and complex world.

Derek also chairs and was one of the founders of the Legal IT Innovators Group which plays a key role in driving ahead technological thinking and change for the good of the legal profession. In this role he has worked alongside the United Nations and a range of other large organisations.

Meg Sullivan is responsible for supporting the firm’s strategy for growth and innovation in legal services. She oversees the creation and implementation of business and client development programs, brand management, marketing, and communications that promote Paul Hastings’ global reach and commitment to client service excellence. Meg also leads the firm’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, helping to align innovation in the firm’s business to its pro bono, sustainability, charitable giving, and diversity and inclusion programs.

Meg has spent the majority of her career helping organizations deliver client relationship-building programs and broaden their global visibility. Before joining Paul Hastings, Meg was based in Europe for ten years. She was the Director of Marketing for the Europe, Middle East, India and Africa region at Andersen. In addition, Meg has served as the director of development and export for a major French clothing manufacturer, the director of development for the largest French shoe manufacturer and the assistant vice president in an American venture capital business.

In 2011 Meg founded Quorum Initiative, an international organization focused on accelerating the advancement of executive women in business. Membership chapters exist in New York, Washington, D.C. and London connecting executive women across borders to share ideas and create systemic change. Meg is passionate about diversity and inclusion being a driver of business innovation and women’s role in helping to shape our future global enterprises.

James Thornton is the founding CEO of ClientEarth, a public interest environmental law group which this year is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The organisation, which has offices in London, Brussels, Warsaw, Beijing and New York, was voted the most effective environmental charity in the UK last year.

The Financial Times awarded Mr Thornton its Special Achievement accolade at the FT 2016 Innovative Lawyers Awards. He also delivered the keynote speech. Since then ClientEarth has been rising up the rankings in the FT 50.

In 2017, Mr Thornton co-authored a book with his husband Martin Goodman, telling the compelling story of ClientEarth. The charity uses advocacy, litigation and research to address the greatest challenges of our time – including biodiversity loss, climate change, and toxic chemicals. It is leading the fight against illegal air pollution in Europe.

Mr Thornton is a member of the bars of New York, California and the Supreme Court of the United States, and a solicitor of England and Wales. He moved from Wall Street law practice to found the Citizens’ Enforcement Project at NRDC in New York, where he brought and won some 80 federal lawsuits against corporations to enforce the Clean Water Act after the Reagan Administration had stopped enforcing the law.

Hugh Verrier is the Chairman of White & Case LLP, a global law firm with 39 offices in 26 countries.

With White & Case for 34 years, Hugh has been Chairman since 2007 and directs the Firm’s strategy and operations around the world.

A New York-qualified lawyer, Hugh spent most of his career with White & Case overseas in Indonesia, Turkey and Russia, where his practice was focused on the development of natural resources.

Hugh has law degrees from the University of Ottawa and Harvard Law School.  He clerked for Justice Bertha Wilson, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court of Canada.

Penelope Warne is Chair and Senior Partner of CMS UK. She is also Head of Energy. Penelope, an oil and gas specialist, joined the firm in 1993 to set up the Aberdeen office and has a strong growth track record. In 25 years, she has transformed CMS’ practice in Scotland from one person in Aberdeen to the market leading practice in Scotland following the combination with Dundas & Wilson in 2014. As the Energy practice group leader, she opened offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Brazil, Mexico and Dubai. Her practice spans the globe advising clients in the oil and gas industry in the North Sea, the US, Norway, Brazil, EMEA and Russia.

Penelope is at the cutting edge of oil industry issues, she is active in thought leadership and trains oil industry lawyers in her role as an Honorary Fellow and Trustee of the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at Dundee University. She is also a member of the Foundation Board at IMD, the highly acclaimed international business school based in Lausanne, Switzerland. CMS runs its Partner Induction Programme in conjunction with IMD and also runs a scholarship programme for associates to secure places on IMD’s Building on Talent programme.

Penelope is ranked as a Leading Energy Expert in both Chambers and Legal 500. She was also ranked in “The Sunday Times Britain’s 500 Most Influential” in 2015 and also in 2016 as one of only 20 in the law category. She was awarded 'Best in Energy, Natural Resources and Mining' at Euromoney's Europe Women in Business Law Awards in 2012 and 2013, and has been recognised in The Lawyer's Hot 100. Penelope works globally with governments, energy industry specialists and academics and is a member of the Oxford University Vice Chancellor's Circle. Penelope is a great supporter of Diversity & Inclusion and is proud to lead the fundraising in the firm.

Professor David B. Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, and Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the Faculty Committee of the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.

Prof. Wilkins has given over 50 endowed lectures at universities around the world and is a frequent speaker at professional conferences and law firm and corporate retreats. He is the author of over 80 articles on the legal profession in leading scholarly journals as well as a co-author of several books, including The Indian Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization (forthcoming 2016), Diversity in Practice (2016), and Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession (5^th edition 2009). He and his Harvard Law School colleague, Andrew Kaufman, are also co-authors of one of the leading casebooks in the field.

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2012 and the Spanish Royal Academy of Doctors in 2014 and most recently was the recipient of the Harvard Law School Association Award in 2016. His major research interests include the legal profession, legal ethics, diversity and globalization.

Dan Wright was a practising corporate lawyer and partner for 15 years. More recently he has changed tact and is now focused full-time on innovation and leads Osborne Clare Solutions - a new team of ex-lawyers and technologists who, enabled by technology, sector knowledge and strong relationship management skills, work directly with clients to build practical solutions to real problems.

Mr Wright and his team work in collaboration with a number of Osborne Clarke's leading clients including multinational businesses across social media, telecoms, software, banking, retail, and financial services to reinvent how commercial, regulatory, property, corporate, litigation and other services are delivered. 

Using design thinking, bespoke coding, fast-building techniques, and applying various productivity technologies through a single platform, the team is creating tangible results for clients, including intelligent workflows, automation, data analysis and visualisation, and current experiments with AI.  Clients can now capture, interrogate and learn from their data to further improve processes and outputs. 

He is an experienced business and legal advisor who has completed hundreds of venture capital financings and numerous public offerings, mergers, acquisitions and licensing transactions. He counsels technology companies at all stages of their life cycles, as well as their founders, advisors and investors. Representative clients have included Nest Labs, Planet Labs, Nanosolar, eHarmony, Royal Dutch Shell, Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital, Pandora, Oracle, Goldman Sachs, Martha Stewart Living, Bessemer Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. Recent transactions he has led include, among others, Nest Labs announced $3.2 billion sale to Google, and Goodreads' sale to Amazon.com. Lawdragon recognizes Mitch as “one of the nation's top tech dealmakers and advisors.” He is described by Chambers as a “terrific all-around lawyer” known for “common sense and business judgment.” Daily Journal named him to its lists of Top Emerging Companies Lawyers and Top Clean Tech Lawyers. During Mitch's tenure as Orrick's chairman and CEO, the firm has pursued a strategy of leadership in the global Technology, Energy & Infrastructure, and Finance sectors. The firm entered new markets in Houston, Geneva and Africa. The firm has also innovated in advancing women and diverse lawyers and adapting its model to appeal to top Millennial talent. Mitch serves on the Board of the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy and on the Advisory Board of the Stanford Law School Center on the Legal Profession. Mitch also created Orrick's Women's Advisory Board, which is comprised of the senior executives from several leading public and private companies. Before joining Orrick, he was a Director at Venture Law Group. He and his wife, Holly, have been married for more than 20 years. They have two children, Hannah (17) and Angus (15).

Jeremy Barton is General Counsel of KPMG UK, one of the largest member firms of KPMG’s global network providing Audit, Tax, Consulting and Deal Advisory services. Jeremy joined KPMG in 2015 and is responsible for legal and corporate governance matters, and advises the Chairman and Board on practice protection, strategic M&A and legal and regulatory risks. He is a member of the Executive Committee.

Before joining KPMG, Jeremy was General Counsel of The Boston Consulting Group and of Ernst & Young Global.  Prior to that he was Deputy General Counsel, Andersen Worldwide, where he led a 50-strong team of lawyers in the swift dismantling of the Andersen organisation in 2002-3.

His career has been focused on leading international teams of lawyers in their innovative support in protecting and navigating the legal, governance and risk exposure issues facing their organisations.

Graduating in law from Cambridge, Jeremy obtained his Law Society Finals in London and practised as a corporate lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright.  In his spare time, Jeremy enjoys running – whether in the Surrey Hills or in the African bush.

Trevor Brown has been General Counsel Europe, Middle East, North Africa since the Region was created in 2014 and prior to that General Counsel Europe from 2003. He is a member of the Nestlé’s Management Leadership Team, and Compliance Officer, for the Region.

Born and brought up in the Chichester area, West Sussex, England, Trevor Brown graduated from the Brunel University, London with a degree in Law (LLB Hons.).

After further studies at the College of Law, Chester, he joined Allen & Overy in 1984 and worked in their London office until 1992. In that year, he took over the responsibility for their Warsaw office where he lived until 1993. In 1993 he moved to Prague where he was responsible for their Czech and Slovak practice and ultimately their Hungarian practice as well.

Trevor joined Nestlé’s head office in Switzerland in 1995. Between 1995 and 2003 he held different positions as Regional Legal Counsel Central and Eastern Europe. As Head of Nestlé’s M&A Practice Group he has been instrumental in developing the function’s M&A capabilities and has led on a number of the Group’s transformative M&A projects.

David Eastwood is a Senior Managing Director in the Telecoms, Media and Technology practice of FTI Consulting , based in London. David has 35 years of experience of accounting and consulting, mostly as a forensic accountant.

His areas of expertise include software and technology licensing, the development and implementation of contract compliance programmes, revenue recovery and the enforcement of intellectual property rights, the licensing of brands and digital content, royalty audits and software asset management.  He has a deep understanding of best practice in these areas. He has broad experience of the TMT sector, working with clients in software, hardware, digital content and telecoms, as well as in other IP rich sectors such as pharma and life sciences.

He has audited software contracts, technology licences, distribution and joint venture agreements, best pricing (Most Favoured Nation) clauses, advertising agreements, co-development agreements and IT supply contracts. He has given evidence in litigation and arbitration more than 20 times and given oral evidence on 7 occasions.  He has sat as arbitrator and as expert to determine disputes.

Before joining FTI, David was a partner at KPMG for almost 20 years, closely involved in the establishment and growth of KPMG’s UK Forensic practice.

Neville Eisenberg is the Senior Partner of Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP (BLP), an international law firm based in London.  Neville joined BLP in 1989 as a corporate lawyer before becoming Managing Partner in 1999 and leading BLP’s development into an international firm of 820 lawyers with 14 offices in 12 countries across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. On 1 May 2015 Neville became Senior Partner.  He is Chairman of Lawyers On Demand, a contract lawyer business owned by BLP, is on the London Council of the Confederation of British Industry and is a trustee of a number of charitable foundations.  A regular speaker on law firm strategy, innovation and the future of legal services, Neville is leading a review at BLP focussed on future models of legal service delivery.

Laura Empson has dedicated more than two decades to researching professionals and professional service firms.  Her latest book, Leading Professionals: Power, Politics, and Prima Donnas, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2017. Her research, funded by a series of prestigious UK government grants, encompasses themes as diverse as: leadership and governance; succession planning; organisational, cultural and identity change; professionalisation of management; mergers and acquisitions; knowledge transfer; and partner evaluation and reward systems.  She has published numerous articles in leading international academic journals and is dedicated to translating her academic research for a practitioner audience, most notably in her book, Managing the Modern Law Firm (2007, Oxford University Press), which was described by The Times as marking a 'seminal moment in the development of management theory in this sector'. She was an Independent Non-Executive of KPMG LLP (2013-2016) and Chair of their Public Interest Committee.  She acts as an adviser to many of the world’s leading law, accounting, investment banking, actuarial and management consulting firms, and is a regular speaker at partner conferences. She was previously Associate Professor (Reader) at the University of Oxford.  Before becoming an academic, Laura worked as an investment banker and strategy consultant. She has a PhD and MBA from London Business School and a BSc(Econ) from University College, London.

Also known as the Mexican lawyer with a French name in the City of London, Yves is the managing partner of the London office of the Mexican independent Law Firm, Nader, Hayaux & Goebel (NHG) (www.nhg.com.mx), the only Mexican law firm with an office in London.  Yves leads NHG’s insurance and reinsurance practice and innovation efforts.

Yves has more than 25 years advising foreign investors into the Mexican market and in their Mexican and Latin American related operations and transactions, as well as Mexican investors in their international operations and transactions.

Yves is recognized as one of Mexico’s leading lawyers in corporate, mergers and acquisitions and banking and finance and as one of Latin America’s leading experts on insurance and reinsurance, where he frequently handles high-end transactions, restructures and regulatory projects, as well as complex claims for leading insurance and reinsurance companies in Mexico and throughout Latin America.

Yves has been actively working with The City of London and the UK to develop further business relationships with Mexico and in 2011 founded the Mexican Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain (www.mexicanchamberofcommerce.co.uk) in 2011, of which he is currently the Chairman.

Yves enjoys tweeting under @YHayaux and writes a blog for The HuffPost Mexico http://www.huffingtonpost.com.mx/bloggers/yves-hayaux-du-tilly/ on law, insurance and international affairs.

Michael Hertz is the Chief Marketing Officer at White & Case, responsible for all client-related matters across the global law firm. He is specifically responsible for brand, marketing, business development, client service and relationship programs, communication and media relations. As the Chief Marketing Officer, he oversees a team of marketing, business development and communications professionals across the globe and reports directly to the Chairman.

Michael started his career in New York as an associate and then as a litigation partner at a top global firm. In 1998, he co-founded and ran a new nonprofit organization called Pro Bono Net, which uses innovative technology and collaborations to increase access to justice. Pro Bono Net is now used by tens of thousands of lawyers—including many pro bono lawyers across the United States. Michael still serves as a board member of Pro Bono Net. In 2005, he moved to London to join another top global law firm to serve as its Global Director of Knowledge and Business Development. This position combined the legal knowledge management and the business development functions into one integrated team.

Michael has significant experience in senior management positions within major global law firms. He also has been recognized on a number of occasions for innovation and his leadership in the legal sector.

Senior Executive with more than 20 years of successful experience with global Fortune-100 companies.

Currently Senior Vice President EMEA Legal for Dell Technologies. Benedikte is part of Dell’s senior management and is leading a team of 100 lawyers and commercial managers covering 123 countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa, representing 25% of Dell’s global activities. She leads InSpace for Legal globally, a program established to drive an innovative culture. She was recently named by the FT as one of the most innovative lawyers in Europe. She is also the Co- Sponsor for WoMen in Action in EMEA.

Prior to Dell, Benedikte worked for Symantec, where she was a member of the EMEA management team and the VP of EMEA Legal.

Previous roles have included establishing and leading the VERITAS legal department in EMEA prior to Symantec’s acquisition of VERITAS in 2005; EMEA Counsel at GE Information Services; and European Legal Associate at Apple Inc. based in Apple’s European headquarters in the UK.

Benedikte received her Master in Law degree from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She is fluent in Danish, English and Swedish, and also speaks French, German and Norwegian. 

Brian Robert Lowry is Deputy General Counsel for Monsanto Company and leads the Office of Law & Policy.  He and his team are responsible for key legal functions and public policy efforts including human rights, human resources and immigration; business conduct, ethics and anti-corruption; intellectual property policy; international trade policy, negotiations and compliance; multi-lateral undertakings and conventions and UN-related matters; and stakeholder and socially responsible investor engagement.  The principle author of Monsanto’s Human Rights Policy, he now chairs the company’s Human Rights Steering Committee and its Office of Sustainability.  Brian also co-chairs the USCIB working group on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Post-2015 Development Agenda and is the first board chair of the U.S. Local Network of the UN Global Compact.  In 2011, Brian was a finalist in the International Law Office Global Counsel Awards, and in 2014, he was recognized as the American Corporate Counsel – St. Louis Business Journal International Lawyer of the Year.  He is regularly engaged in university discussions on food security and business and human rights.  In addition to his work at Monsanto, Brian participates in a number of philanthropic, arts and community boards and activities.

Mr. Lowry has taken advanced studies at Stanford University and Harvard University, and he has degrees from the University of Dayton, summa cum laude, BS Education, and Washington University, Juris Doctorate.

Aine Lyons is the head of Worldwide Legal Operations and Chief of Staff for VMware’s General Counsel. She performs a global role and is responsible for driving operational excellence through iterative, scalable innovation.

Aine fosters cohesion and synchronicity in a legal department that is global (170 members in 25 cities in 16 countries), multi-cultural, and multi-disciplinary. The department’s composition (53% female, 23% underrepresented minority) and her role on the global VMinclusion Council reflects her commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Aine adopts a data-driven focus on the business’s bottom-line success. She has achieved an 18% reduction in legal spend as a percentage of revenue over the last four years through transformative initiatives. Such measurable improvements in client service and customer experience are among the many reasons VMware was recently recognized by the Association of Corporate Counsel as a 2015 Value Champion for legal operational excellence and won the 2016 Financial Times’ “Most Innovative In-House Legal Team Award” Aine is also a regular speaker and writer for the Association of Corporate Counsels (ACC) on legal operations topics and is the founding member of, and European lead for,  the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC).

Aine graduated cum laude from the University of Limerick, Ireland with a B.A. in Law and European Studies (1993) and an M.A. in European Integration - Law, Economics and Politics (1995). After graduating from the Law Society of Ireland, Aine was admitted to the roll of solicitors by the Irish High Court in 1997. Prior to joining VMware, Aine worked in Paris, London and Ireland in various senior in-house roles, managing legal and cross-functional teams in global corporations.

Jacquelyn MacLennan is a Partner of the global law firm White & Case, based in its Brussels office. In addition to being the Global Head of the firm’s Pro Bono practice, Jacquelyn focuses on EU competition law, developing strategies for and running defences in major international cartel investigations and litigations, and advising on complex distribution problems and licensing arrangements, abuse of dominance cases, mergers, and joint ventures.  She also advises on EU customs/trade law, and EU regulatory requirements, notably environmental law.  She has had long experience of working with world renowned multinationals in designing compliance policies and programmes.

She has accumulated substantial management experience in the course of her career: she is currently a member of White & Case’s primary governance body (its Partnership Committee); she was until September 2015 part of the Executive Committee, responsible for implementing the firm’s strategy and management, and was for a number of years the Executive Partner responsible for running the Brussels office of White & Case.

Jacquelyn is a keen promoter of inclusive leadership, and has actively supported White & Case’s Global Women’s Initiative since its inception, which includes mentoring women lawyers and supporting their careers in many different ways.  She initiated a Brussels office annual women’s networking event which has grown since 2007 to attract a large number of clients, diplomats, politicians and other professionals.

Sophie Mathur’s work as a Linklaters M&A partner straddles cross-border corporate transactions on some of the largest transactions in Asia Pacific as well as work with start-ups. Ms Mathur is also one of the firm’s Global Co-Heads of Innovation  - a role she plays with a deep sense of purpose - to shake up the culture of the legal profession and the way lawyers work. As a mother of twin 4-year-olds, the use of technology to enhance effectiveness and achieve balance is particularly resonant to her.

Named Legal Innovator of the Year in the FT Innovative Lawyers Asia Pacific Report 2017, Ms Mathur is on the steering committee for the Future Law Innovation Programme initiated by the Singapore Academy of Law and is on the Advisory Board of the Law School of the Singapore Management University. She is also one of the co-founders of the Innovative Lawyers Forum in Singapore - a forum session for senior lawyers, across multiple industries, who meet regularly to discuss and find practical innovative solutions to day-to-day challenges.

Ms Mathur regularly speaks at events, and most recently has been speaking on cryptocurrency and ICOs at various investor conferences.

Derede McAlpin (pronounced “Deree”) serves as Vice President & Chief Communications Officer for the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), a global legal association that serves over 42,000 corporate lawyers around the world. She oversees ACC’s Communications/Branding, Marketing, Social/Digital Media, and Research functions, and manages communications initiatives to ensure ACC is out in front on issues affecting the in-house counsel community. She also oversees the ACC’s award-winning magazine, the ACC Docket, a publication read by more than 42,000 in the business and legal communities worldwide - delivering news and practical advice by in-house counsel, for in-house counsel.

She also provides executive level counsel and direction for ACC, its staff, Board of Directors and members on strategic initiatives, thought leadership, social media campaigns and reputation management/crisis issues.

Prior to joining ACC, Derede led litigation, crisis, online reputation management, and legal marketing campaigns for LEVICK, where she represented Fortune 500 companies, law firms, associations, public figures, and other professional service organizations. She developed an international communications plan for the nation’s first full facial transplant recipient; worked on Supreme Court cases including Snyder v. Phelps, the Landmark First Amendment Case; and has served as lead communications counsel for global clients facing crisis and litigation issues, including regulatory matters, class actions, whistleblower cases, data breaches, and energy industry issues, among others. Her additional experience includes positions with Howard University, Investment Company Institute, DC Superior Court, 6ABC News (Philadelphia), and clinical training at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.

As a member of ABC-Philadelphia’s news team, she covered high-profile trials including the case that inspired the movie “Silence of the Lambs” and the trial of mob crime boss Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo. In addition, she was one of the first women to cover professional sports from behind the scenes  - the locker room - for the Philadelphia Eagles, Flyers, Phillies, and Sixers.

An oft-quoted authority on complex communications, legal and business issues, Derede is frequently sought after by organizations to speak on challenging issues confronting corporations and has contributed commentary on global business and crisis issues for such media outlets as NBC Nightly News; Thomson Reuters; the Washington Post’s NFL blog, The League; Locker Room Magazine; Canadian Broadcast Network; Canadian Lawyer InHouse and American Lawyer Media publications, among others.

Derede holds a Juris Doctorate degree from the Temple University Beasley School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in communications from Howard University. She also studied international law in Rome, Italy, and completed the Yale Publishing Course (YPC), an advanced leadership program for book and magazine executives.

Alastair Morrison has been a Pinsent Masons Board member for 12 years and has responsibility for Client Strategy at international law firm Pinsent Masons.  Alastair is charged with advising the Board on the objectives, strategies and investments required to sustain the firm's relevance to clients.

He is responsible for working with the firm's key relationships to deliver integrated value propositions and solutions relevant to clients.  Through working closely with some of the firm's most significant clients he has a wealth of experience and a breadth of knowledge of the demands and issues facing General Counsel and their teams thus enabling him and the team to create a range of innovative legal delivery models.

He has spoken at a number of international conferences on the challenges faced by clients and how these challenges are shaping his firm and the legal profession more widely.

Alastair is a construction lawyer by background and is ranked as an Eminent Practitioner in his field by Chambers & Partners UK 2017 Guide.

Rui de Oliveira Neves, lawyer and master in laws, has been counsel to national and international companies and the Portuguese government, with particular emphasis to the areas of energy and capital markets, being acknowledged by the market as leading lawyer in such areas of practice.

For 15 years he practiced law at Morais Leitão, Galvão Teles, Soares da Silva & Associates, where he attained a partner position, having taken office as General Counsel of Galp, responsible for the Legal and Governance department, since June 2013. He is as well executive board member of ISPG – Institute of Petroleum and Gas, Association for advanced training and research.

On the academic side he is visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa in the area of energy law and at the Faculty of Law of the Universidade de Lisboa in the area of corporate and securities law.

He is an arbitrator with the Commercial Arbitration Center of the Commercial Arbitration Institute of the Oporto Commercial Association.

He is member of the Governance Lab, group of more than 40 authors who are dedicated to the research and discussion on topics related to private and public corporate governance, with a view to actively contribute to the progress of practices, recommendations and legal rules.

He is also the author of various specialized publications in the areas of corporate law, corporate governance and capital markets.

Nicola Port is Senior Vice President and International Counsel at Chubb Ltd, a diversified insurer and reinsurer with operations in 54 countries. In her role, she reports to Chubb’s Global General Counsel and provides counsel on international legal matters and regulatory affairs. She also is Co-Chair of the Chubb Rule of Law Fund, a Chubb Legal Department initiative which supports organizations focused on building and strengthening legal institutions around the world. Prior to joining Chubb (then ACE Ltd) in 2012, Ms. Port spent over a decade as an attorney with the international law firm Debevoise & Plimpton where her practice focused on cross-border matters in areas of international litigation, arbitration, and global regulatory affairs. She holds law degrees from Columbia Law School and the University of Zurich, and is admitted to the New York and Zurich bars.

Marvin Rust heads the European Tax Advisory Group at FTI Consulting and leads the FTI Global Tax Network (http://fti.tax) which provides high quality tax advisory, transfer pricing and compliance services to large multinational clients across all industry sectors at a global level.

Marvin has broad experience in transactions, refinancings and transfer pricing and has advised on completed transactions in excess of USD 20 billion and restructurings in excess of USD 10 billion over the last 10 years. His transaction and restructuring experience covers both sale and purchase advice for corporates, private equity and high net worth individuals and bank side advice.

He also heads the Tourism, Hospitality & Leisure industry group in EMEA at FTI Consulting and is recognised globally as one of the leading tax advisers in the sector, working with owners, operators and lenders. His wider sector experience includes Retail, Telecoms, Pharmaceutical and Consumer Products in particular.

For over 10 years he has been named as one of the world’s leading transfer pricing advisers in a survey conducted by the Legal Media Group.

Anne founded Meyler Campbell, which trains senior leaders around the world in the core leadership skill of coaching. Author of the best-selling Financial Times Guide to Business Coaching, Anne is according to Harvard Business Review one of the five leading experts in the world on executive coaching. She is a Founding Fellow of the Harvard Institute of Coaching (ICPA) and has received the rare honour for a non-medic, of being made a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (FRSM), in recognition of her work. Originally a diplomat and international banker, Anne worked on management of change projects in the UK, Asia, and North America, and with individuals and teams in fast-growing companies and professional service firms, before retraining mid-career as a psychologist. In parallel with her work training leaders, she is currently leading research projects on leadership performance, in conjunction with a major University and PSF firms. Anne and her colleagues in Meyler Campbell and the influential cadre of their global Alumni work at FTSE 100, DAX 30 etc Board/senior Executive level; with Governments, the World Bank, and WEF/Davos; and in legal, management consultancy and investment banking operations in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America and Australasia.

Meg Sullivan is responsible for supporting the firm’s strategy for growth and innovation in legal services. She oversees the creation and implementation of business and client development programs, brand management, marketing, and communications that promote Paul Hastings’ global reach and commitment to client service excellence. Meg also leads the firm’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, helping to align innovation in the firm’s business to its pro bono, sustainability, charitable giving, and diversity and inclusion programs.

Meg has spent the majority of her career helping organizations deliver client relationship-building programs and broaden their global visibility. Before joining Paul Hastings, Meg was based in Europe for ten years. She was the Director of Marketing for the Europe, Middle East, India and Africa region at Andersen. In addition, Meg has served as the director of development and export for a major French clothing manufacturer, the director of development for the largest French shoe manufacturer and the assistant vice president in an American venture capital business.

In 2011 Meg founded Quorum Initiative, an international organization focused on accelerating the advancement of executive women in business. Membership chapters exist in New York, Washington, D.C. and London connecting executive women across borders to share ideas and create systemic change. Meg is passionate about diversity and inclusion being a driver of business innovation and women’s role in helping to shape our future global enterprises.

Mark Van De Voorde is the chief legal and administrative officer and corporate secretary of Victaulic Company.

Prior to joining Victaulic, he served in a similar role at Olympus and as a managing director at Barclays Capital and other investment banks.

He holds a BBA from the University of Iowa, a JD from the University of Iowa, and an MBA.

Maria Varsellona, is the Nokia Chief Legal Officer since May 2014. In addition, Maria has P&L responsibility for Nokia’s IPR business. She joined the Nokia Group in July 2013, as Nokia Siemens Networks General Counsel. Prior to joining Nokia Siemens Networks, Maria served as the General Counsel at TetraPak from 2011 to 2013 and at Sidel from 2009 to 2011. Both TetraPak and Sidel belong to the Tetra Laval Group. From to 2001 to 2009, Maria covered various senior global roles in the GE Oil & Gas legal department. Maria holds a JD from the university of Palermo, Italy. She was admitted to practice as a lawyer in Italy in 1996 and as a solicitor in England and Wales in 2000. In addition to her executive roles at Nokia, Maria is a member of the Nordea Bank Board, since March 2017, and she was a member of the Alcatel Lucent Board from January 2016 to April 2017.