Tullow Oil
‘If you cut Graham Martin he would bleed Tullow Oil,’ says one leading energy lawyer. Martin is clearly committed to a company that he has been associated with since his private practice days at Vinson & Elkins in the eighties, which has exploration and production assets in 23 countries, including Africa, Europe, South Asia and South America.
Royal Dutch Shell
In 2010 Shell’s legal director Beat Hess retired, leaving big shoes to fill, so the oil major took the unusual step of hiring arbitration specialist Peter Rees QC.
ConocoPhillips
Janet Langford Kelly is revered as one of the leading in-house international lawyers on complex energy matters with 25 years’ experience in the industry. ‘I don’t know if there is any straight “path” to becoming a GC, it is often as much luck as preparation,’ she says.
Centrica
Since Centrica’s demerger from British Gas in 1997, Grant Dawson has ‘made the role his own’, according to one energy partner. This includes leading the way with his advice on deals covering the full spread of power supply and generation, including Centrica’s joint venture with EDF Energy in 2009 and the acquisition of Venture Production.
BG Group
Described as ‘such a big name that his views will always get taken seriously both inside and outside the company’ and having spent the best part of two decades as a partner at a Magic Circle firm, Graham Vinter has high expectations of his external legal panel firms. With an external legal spend of $30m-40m worldwide each year at BG Group he is particularly keen that firms have a deep understanding of the oil and gas industry and the cost pressures clients are under.
Anadarko Petroleum
Robert Reeves, the general counsel at oil and gas exploration company Anadarko Petroleum is highlighted as ‘carrying a lot of weight in the industry’. With more than 30 years of legal and management experience under his belt, Reeves has responsibility for the company’s legal, government relations, public affairs, information technology and administration functions.
Gazprom Energy Marketing & Trading
Identified as a ‘smart lawyer with a broad international perspective’ and a ‘rising star of the industry’, Jacqueline Hill has been the GC for the UK subsidiary of the Russian gas giant Gazprom since 2006 after moving from EDF Trading.
Continue reading “Jacqueline Hill – Gazprom Energy Marketing & Trading”
Roche Products
Funke Abimbola made the leap from private practice to in-house at the beginning of last year and hasn’t looked back since. She says that she is the ‘only non-medic’ in her family and has consequently found her home at the pharmaceutical giant.
Astellas Pharma Europe
With an in-house career at pharma companies spanning more than 20 years, Jerry Temko is one of the most experienced GCs in the sector.
Bupa
Since joining Bupa in 1987, Paul Newton has progressed up the ranks to become the group’s legal director and has seen the legal team grow to 70 lawyers in 11 locations, with an annual legal spend of £6.6m. Given the group turns over £8bn, serves 11 million clients and employs 52,000 staff, the size of the team is relatively modest and Newton has an extensive panel of strong firms that he uses for M&A, litigation, regulatory insurance, media, employment and IP/IT.
NHS Litigation Authority
Catherine Dixon, who joined the NHSLA in April 2012, is working closely with its panel of legal firms to ensure that value for money is delivered to the NHS. She will shortly be leading a legal panel tender to engage legal services for the NHSLA and other NHS bodies, which is due to complete on 1 April this year. ‘Procuring legal services is always a sophisticated purchase. It has to be the right price but it’s key that it’s the right quality,’ she says.
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Novartis
In July last year Novartis unveiled an overhaul of its ‘Legal Preferred Program’, which involved reassessing its panel of law firms. Led by group general counsel Felix Ehrat – a former senior partner at one of Switzerland’s most prestigious firms – the panel comprises 25 firms divided into four groups – global firms, US country firms, US country specialist firms and US country specialist intellectual property firms.
Smith & Nephew
During her time with the medical devices company, Francesca Yeomans has established a successfully functioning department after starting out as the company’s sole lawyer outside the US. She reports to the US global legal team, which comprises 16 lawyers, six paralegals and nine IP attorneys.
British Heart Foundation
After 12 years’ experience of in-house roles at Tesco and Which?, Deborah Prince began work for the healthcare charity at the beginning of 2012 as its sole in-house lawyer. This is all a far cry from her early days as a neuroscientist at Imperial College where she spent seven years.
Continue reading “Deborah Prince – British Heart Foundation”
AstraZeneca
Adam McArthur has ten years’ experience at two of the world’s most prominent pharmaceuticals companies:Novartis and now AstraZeneca. He is part of a 22-strong legal team responsible for global business development activities in respiratory, inflammation and ophthalmology.
Tatjana May has been with Shire Pharmaceuticals, the UK’s third largest drugs group, since 2001, having spent the earlier part of her career in the prestigious surroundings of AstraZeneca, where she was assistant general counsel, and Slaughter and May. In 2008 she was also appointed chair of the corporate responsibility committee.
Reckitt Benckiser
Bill Mordan manages a team of 58 legal professionals in offices in 19 countries for the global company. In 2011 he received the Association of Corporate Counsel’s award for ‘Excellence in corporate practice’, with the ACC describing him as:‘an invaluable asset to Reckitt Benckiser, Bill has built a strong legal department, developing a departmental structure that not only ensures worldwide compliance, but does so at costs well below the industry norm.’
Aegis Group
Simon Zinger leads a global legal team of 25 internal lawyers at Aegis Group. This is part of the reason he enjoys his job: he relishes the ability to work and manage a team in an international setting, which is a challenge as the company has to follow the same set of values and objectives across a variety of different cultures.
Channel 5
Marcus Lee says that the pull of working in the broadcast industry is ‘that it is always evolving – no two days are the same’. However, he adds that its constantly fluctuating nature means it is also an incredibly competitive industry, in terms of acquiring the best content, keeping up with a large variety of platforms and looking at innovative revenue streams while keeping traditional advertisers happy.
Siemens
Claire Carless has only been at Siemens for a short time, joining the company in January 2012 and taking the role of GC for North West Europe as well as the UK role last summer. She has a sizeable legal team of 35 lawyers and a compliance team of six, spread across various parts of England. One of her first tasks was to review the legal panel.
