I saw a seagull trying to drink a glass of red wine the other day. I was at the House of Lords for an event on ESG governance and standing on the balustrade of the terrace was a massive seagull sticking its beak into a glass of red. It knocked one glass into the Thames and then another. There are so many awful things going on in the world but this kind of thing keeps me amused!
I did a chemistry degree. People graduating with chemistry either went on to do more research, doctorates, become teachers or accountants. I didn’t want to do any of those. One of my friends was doing a BCL and she said I should think about law. I thought: ‘Why not?’
I didn’t want to ask my parents to pay for more education.
I wanted a firm that would sponsor me through and that had international offices. My dad was in the RAF and I was born in Germany. My parents lived in Saudi and Washington DC so I’m just used to an international way of living. I didn’t know much about law. I got offered a training contract with Slaughter and May and they would pay for the law school CPE and LPC.
I learned a lot doing my training contract at Slaughters. I had six months in Hong Kong. I qualified into corporate, Nigel Boardman’s group. An amazing breadth of work. Revolving credit facilities, warrant issues, public takeovers with Frances Murphy. It was a learning ground for doing M&A.
I did secondments with JP Morgan’s M&A advisory team and at Swedish law firm Mannheimer Swartling. I had never been to Sweden. It opened my eyes to a completely different way of working. It sounds clichéd, but it was diplomatic. In the team meetings the PAs would bounce ideas off partners and were equally included. You were expected to speak, whereas I was used to the partners telling you what to do. It was a lot more ‘normal’ than Slaughters.
Afterwards, I walked back into Slaughters and thought how quiet it was. I had an early mid-life crisis. I remember walking under that tunnel at the Barbican, looking up and seeing the office, and thinking: ‘I don’t want to be doing this in 20 years.’ Commuting, working, commuting, sleeping. My husband was working at Morgan Stanley and we decided to go and live somewhere else.
I’d been to Hong Kong before and thought it was a great place. We could save money. My husband persuaded Morgan Stanley to send him there. Slaughters said: ‘Yes, you can go, but it will be in a few months’ time.’ It was taking too long so, in my great naivety, I just left Slaughters to find another job!
I got a job with Deacons. I realised in the first week it wasn’t the right place for me long term. However, it was brilliant because it was mainly local. I learned loads very quickly about Hong Kong listing rules, about the Takeover Code, the local market, in a way I would never have done if I’d gone straight to an international firm.
I had met Teresa Ma from Linklaters on a deal when I was a junior associate at Slaughters. We were drafting something in the middle of the night at Rothschild. I didn’t have any money, so I was about to walk back to Slaughters. She said: ‘It’s 2am! You’re not walking back from here!’ She gave me a lift in a taxi and I got to know her. She was in Hong Kong then and I heard via another friend she was looking for someone to join her team. I joined Linklaters as a managing associate after a year at Deacons. I got promoted to partner and we did lots of travel. Ended up being in the Beijing office for three months to help integrate that.
I had an early mid-life crisis. I remember walking under that tunnel at the Barbican, looking up and seeing the office, and thinking: ‘I don’t want to be doing this in 20 years.’
I once went to Portugal on short notice to join some negotiations. We must have signed at some stupid time on a Friday and the client needed to get back for Saturday. There were no commercial planes so one of them got their credit card out, chartered a jet from Lisbon to Luton. It was one of those: ‘Did that really happen?’ moments. You’re being offered gin and tonic and champagne. I thought: ‘I can’t believe this is happening and I’m with old men!’
I had some mad times in Korea on a deal involving Korea Exchange Bank. Going to Seoul and realising a lot of people don’t speak any English and the signs aren’t in English. I managed to break a heel: I had half a shoe, what do I do?’ Having to get a shoe mended before a meeting not speaking any Korean. That was instructive in that it was mainly men and the socialising afterwards was men going to a bar. Not that I would have wanted to have gone, but I would not have been invited. The women that you saw were the receptionists. People would say that women wanted to work at this top Korean law firm to get a husband. Highly educated women.
I had my children in Hong Kong and when my daughter was born my son was two. We’d been in Hong Kong for ten years and we knew it wasn’t the right place to school the children so we were thinking of moving back to the UK. My husband was in London at the time and, out of the blue, my son was diagnosed with a rare cancer. The father of one of my godsons is a paediatric surgeon in the UK. He said: ‘This is very rare, you need to get Milo to Great Ormond Street Hospital.’ Milo had a big operation, various scans. It finally felt under control. That was over the summer. By the time it came to Christmas, we said we weren’t going back to Hong Kong.
I was one of the first partners to take maternity leave and I didn’t want to take statutory. It was too short. What message would that have sent out? I know the message given to me by women who were on conference calls while giving birth! I didn’t want to be that person. I mainly did public M&A and I did governance as well but my practice in Hong Kong was big deals. I could not physically or mentally build up that practice in London having been out of the market for ten years.
I was walking across Clapham Common and Sarah Wiggins [former London corporate head at Linklaters, now at HSBC] called me. She said PwC was looking for someone to sort out its governance and secretariat team. I went to meet Alison Statham, who is now general counsel, and Margaret Cole. I knew what my priorities were – I just needed to find a nice, interesting place to work. It felt right. Nice people, nice building, good challenge. Played to some of my governance work. The trigger point threw everything up in the air and things just landed a bit differently.
I got asked to set up corporate affairs in the UK and
co-head that, bringing together four different teams: comms, secretariat/governance, reputation and regulation, and investor relations. Learned so much and worked with such brilliant people. Couldn’t see where it was going, so when I got approached about the Anglo American job, I thought: ‘That’s a new sector. Why not?’
I’m glad I went to PwC. I’d seen a completely different way of working – that the lawyer bit is a tiny piece of the overall picture of the business in a way that I wish I’d known when I was in private practice. I’ve seen how good businesses are run and it plugged me into more external engagement.
You have law firms that are nominally in the same bands but the experience of using them is very different. I prefer normal, human communication. Yes, we expect the technical knowledge, but present that information in a way that’s normal. Appreciating the audience isn’t always going to be people who’ve had five years’ law school education. I prefer firms that are not up an ivory tower; write in a way that doesn’t involve words like ‘hereafter’. Why do you have to say that?
I was one of the first partners to take maternity leave and I didn’t want to take statutory. It was too short. What message would that have sent out?
I work well with firms that enjoy feedback so that we can make things better. Don’t get defensive. Sometimes you have to ask: ‘What’s the point coming out of this missive?’ Then I have to get my team to translate. Some firms don’t have much EQ and just keep bugging you for meetings and lunches. Maybe some clients enjoy that but that doesn’t add value to my day. I don’t want to go out drinking in the evening or have someone calling me all the time when they don’t need to. I prefer when firms get those touchpoints right.
Frances Murphy stood out as a female M&A partner but she would have a laugh. She wasn’t a dragon. She was relatable. Teresa Ma is one of my daughter’s godmothers, and she has an amazing way with clients and work ethic. At PwC, Margaret Cole was my boss. She trusted me to get on with stuff. Didn’t care where I was. Gave me opportunities outside my comfort zone. I learned an awful lot just watching the way she did things. She’s very good at prioritising. The decision-making was always done with a core of integrity. Kevin Ellis, very understated, is now the senior partner of PwC. Quite happily talk to you about his labradoodle. Normal.
I enjoy working with high performers – people who are proactive. I do not enjoy working with lazy people who don’t respond to things and say they’re too busy.
It’s difficult with what’s going on with Russia and Ukraine to see what comes out of the ESG agenda. What the world order and the business landscape will look like. We’re running out of time to change things, focus on the environment and social issues. People might make profits in five or ten years, but that doesn’t matter if the world goes to pot in 40 or 50 years. People care about their dividends. Unless that changes, it’s hard for there to be incentives to value other things.
In hindsight, I would have looked up earlier. I left having children pretty late. I didn’t even think about stepping off the career ladder, but I was forced to have that reckoning. Everything with Milo made me think about my priorities. Family. What’s more important?
Samantha Thompson is head of legal global M&A at Anglo American.