The media company’s group legal director discusses how her personal approach took her to the top of her game
At the age of 19, while doing work experience for a duty solicitor, Nilema Bhakta-Jones was called to Nuneaton police station, finding herself in a mostly empty set of cells at 1am. One cell was occupied by the client, a man arrested on suspicion of committing grievous bodily harm against his pregnant girlfriend.
‘Having concluded the consultation, I banged on the door to be let out and indicate we were ready for interview but that the client needed to sleep first. The police deliberately took their time to answer, probably to intimidate me. The prospect of spending the rest of the morning in the cells with my client gave me a slight panic, so I banged on the cell loudly. They eventually let me out!’
While a minor footnote early in a career that has taken her to the Bar, private practice and now in-house as group legal director of media company Ascential, the story underlines Bhakta-Jones’ no-nonsense approach. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, she cites Nelson Mandela as her inspiration, alongside her mother. She adds: ‘In my background, education is considered the passport to the world.’
Bhakta-Jones first moved to the UK in 1979, around the time of Zimbabwe’s independence. Her career started in 1994 with a pupillage at civil law chambers 2 Field Court. But after struggling to afford the self-employed system, she moved a year later to the Government Legal Service, where she mainly worked on prosecutions of drug importers and bootleggers.
A placement came up at Simmons & Simmons in 1998 and she ended up staying there for six years. It was there that she made a name for herself, acting on a number of high-profile cases as an associate. One of these was Canada’s most high-profile terrorist case, in which Air India Flight 182 was destroyed by a bomb over the Atlantic Ocean, killing 268 Canadian civilians. In 2002, Bhakta-Jones worked on the judicial review of the case, where new forensic evidence linked the bomber to a second Air India bombing at Narita Airport in Japan.
Ultimately, the lure of a move in-house proved too strong and she joined The Travel Corporation in 2005 as general counsel (GC). ‘I wanted to broaden my understanding of business operations. I was impressed by the GCs I met during my time in private practice and felt it was a worthy alternative. It wasn’t like the rubbish being propagated at the time, which was that failed private practice lawyers go in-house.’
‘I was impressed by the GCs I met during my time in private practice. It wasn’t like the rubbish being propagated at the time, that failed private practice lawyers go in-house.’
In 2007 she moved to publishing company EMAP as group legal adviser while it was disposing of its various print titles. Initially on a six-month maternity cover, she was immediately tasked with overseeing the company’s delisting and sale of its B2B business to Apax Partners and Guardian Media Group. The combined deals were worth in excess of £1.2bn and the delisting process took only 15 months, whereas auditors PwC originally warned it could take two to three years. Bhakta-Jones was made up to GC in 2008, and since then EMAP has undergone two name changes and a complete restructuring of its business.
EMAP became Top Right Group in 2012, before changing again to Ascential in 2015. Bhakta-Jones observes that, as of 2010, the company’s stated objective has been to digitise its various publications, currently leaving only Retail Week with a physical print presence. Since that time, Ascential has also moved into the events and data information business, hosting various exhibitions and festivals, including the advertising awards event the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity: ‘Our events businesses are generating content that people are consuming digitally. We’re seeing a crossover between our digital data and events businesses.’
In many respects the wider publishing industry mirrors the print media industry, with declining interest in physical formats and increasing demand for online content. However, Bhakta-Jones dismisses the notion that the business operates in challenging market conditions: ‘There’s immense opportunity. The challenges we have to respect are those that are affecting our customer set. We have to keep tabs on what’s happening in the world politically, in particular what happens in the US and how it impacts business and travel. People need to travel to our events and we need our employees to travel.’
She describes the events industry as ‘pacy’ and emphasises the impact that geopolitical events can have on her area of work. ‘We’ve created a business in the past six years where we now have a third of our revenue coming from the US. We were very dependent on the UK economy. Now we’re a very international business. We think that’s a good way of creating a diverse portfolio to prepare our business for change, and create a resilient platform for continued growth.’
The legal team at Ascential comprises eight lawyers, who work on ‘pretty much everything apart from property and specialist employment advice’. Bhakta-Jones is also in the process of hiring two more lawyers to her team, one in London and one in Salt Lake City.
In terms of external counsel, Bhakta-Jones demands a high level of flexibility and a well-established relationship. As opposed to a formal panel arrangement, she prefers ‘long-term relationships with partners I’ve built up trust with, who are not fair-weather friends. They’ll answer the call, whether we’re giving them work that year of not. It’s less about the firm and more about the individual’.
She cites Edmund Reed, corporate partner at Travers Smith, Osborne Clarke litigation partner Ashley Hurst and DLA Piper employment partner Vinita Arora among others as those with whom she shares that kind of affinity. However, she favours alternative providers for her external work and names Obelisk Support, Axiom and Lawyers On Demand (LOD) as go-to service providers.
‘Our profession is evolving to meet customer need. That’s why I prefer to experiment with the likes of Obelisk, Axiom and LOD, who have different business models. We’ve changed and evolved so significantly as a business that our needs change. Therefore the advisers we need also change. Those showing willingness to keep up with the pace and immerse themselves in our business really make the difference.’
‘I don’t ask lawyers to fall on their swords in terms of costs. We have a really easy conversation because, more often than not, we reach the same conclusion.’
And while a common attraction of alternative legal providers is more competitive rates, for Bhakta-Jones concern over fees is non-existent. ‘I don’t ask lawyers to fall on their swords in terms of costs. We have a really easy conversation because, more often than not, we reach the same conclusion.’
As demand for external advice is ad hoc, it is difficult for her to put a figure on legal spend, but she indicates that recent years have seen a ‘shedload’ of exceptional costs surrounding the company’s 2016 £800m initial public offering. In the deal, which saw Guardian Media Group decrease its stake in Ascential from 33% to 23%, Bhakta-Jones turned to her trusted alternative providers for support. But she insists that without exceptional work, Ascential keeps a lot of its operations in-house: ‘Business-as-usual spend is pretty small, below £500,000 globally. We do so much in-house with a very efficient team.’
While the breakup of EMAP stands out as one of the most testing transactions of her career due to the demanding time constraints, she also recognises the 2012 business restructure as a significant undertaking. That revamp saw Ascential invest £37m into IT infrastructure work, in addition to expanding the company into emerging territories such as China and Brazil. She describes the result as getting the company to ‘the starting line of growth’.
The company has seen growth since. Last year’s financial results saw revenue up in all areas, with US and Canada revenues jumping 39% from £40.5m to £56.4m. Total revenues for the 12 months to December 2016 also increased, rising 17% from £256.6m to £299.6m. Ascential’s growth in the US and Canada was underlined in February this year, when the company acquired 100% of Media Link, a US-based business services firm.
With a lean team, there is little difficulty in demonstrating legal’s value to the rest of the business. ‘I put the team through time recording one year, which they absolutely hated. But it benefited us by demonstrating how and where we spend our time. As a result, we’re not put under that scrutiny, to demonstrate we’re adding value. We’re actually in the reverse position where our value is just acknowledged. We prefer to spend our time on the things that are really important to our business and our growth objectives.’
For Bhakta-Jones, the influence of her family and the values they imparted on her still fuel her determination to this day: ‘Last year was a really challenging year, I lost both my parents in a three-month period. I could not have learnt more about myself in that time. It forces me to be a leader and a better person. It focuses my mind on what I want to do: make a positive change to people’s lives.’
tom.baker@legalease.co.uk
At a glance: Nilema Bhakta-Jones
CAREER
1994-95 Barrister, 2 Field Court
1995-98 Senior legal adviser, HM Customs & Excise
1998-2004 Solicitor, Simmons & Simmons
2005-06 General counsel, The Travel Corporation
2007 Group legal adviser, EMAP
2008-present Group legal director, Ascential
ASCENTIAL – KEY FACTS
Size of team Eight lawyers
External legal spend Business-as-usual: £500,000; exceptional: £2m
Preferred advisers Lawyers On Demand, Obelisk Support, Axiom, Travers Smith, Osborne Clarke, DLA Piper, Norton Rose Fulbright, Slaughter and May, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson