The train puns were inevitable, but it took longer than expected. Towards the end of my conversation with the general counsel of online ticket retailer trainline, Neil Murrin, he says: ‘It’s a matter of getting people to join us on that journey.’ And adds: ‘Getting people on the right track and all that.’
Unusually for the current UK and Ireland general counsel of Swiss multinational and famed KitKat creator Nestlé, Mark Maurice-Jones’ career started in teaching. Armed with a chemical engineering degree from the University of Cambridge that he was unsure how to utilise, Maurice-Jones opted for a year-and-a-half-long stint in Hong Kong teaching maths, physics and chemistry. …
Within a month of Mark Cooper joining National Grid (NG)’s in-house team in 2015, things became very busy very quickly. UK general counsel Rachael Davidson told him that one of the businesses he was looking after – NG’s gas distribution network – was going to be sold off.
As a former senior staffer in the Clinton administration, David Fein has a tendency to chart his career and life against the backdrop of US politics. While working as a state district attorney, it was early in Barack Obama’s second presidential term that Fein found himself getting wistful for a new chapter, one that would …
Many in-house counsel will say that the attraction of the job comes from having greater influence on their business and this is also true for Alice Marsden, group general counsel of Thomas Cook Group. However, the real draw for her comes from sometimes getting to have an altogether more personal impact.
‘I would never have taken a role where I wasn’t sitting at the top table. I make sure I have influence in how a firm goes about things,’ notes veteran litigator Margaret Cole, PwC’s UK general counsel and chief risk officer.
Catherine McGregor: Lawyers get very focused on their professional qualifications, but as they rise through the ranks – particularly to the general counsel position – their role becomes increasingly focused on management. A common concern we hear is that they feel ill-equipped to deal with this shift. There can also be a desire not to …
‘The fantastic, wonderful part about being in-house is working with massively stimulating people. There’s this misconception that you outsource talent. You don’t.’ So says Piers Le Marchant, chief compliance officer for corporate and investment banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
‘It was ambition that made me decide to leave Barclays,’ declares self-confessed deal junkie Michael Shaw, who resigned from his role as the bank’s deputy general counsel in the summer of 2015. Shaw was eager to pursue a weightier leadership role after six years serving as the ‘apprentice’. Bob Hoyt had succeeded Mark Harding as …
Continue reading “Profile: Michael Shaw, The Royal Bank of Scotland”
It was third time lucky when IHL finally managed to catch up with The Economist Newspaper’s general counsel and company secretary, Oscar Grut. The GC offered a stream of apologies on IHL’s arrival at his Canary Wharf office, explaining that he had been busy selling off the company’s London headquarters in St James’s. The sale …