Joe Whitfield > Bates Wells > London, England > Lawyer Profile

Joe Whitfield

020 7551 7904 j.whitfield@bateswells.co.uk

Work Department

Charity & Social Enterprise

Position

Joe leads the Bates Wells’ Development Finance practice, specialising in impact investment and financing transactions with a focus on the Global South and emerging markets. With more than 25 years’ experience leading on a wide range of complex cross border transactions across a number of sectors, Joe provides proactive, pragmatic, commercial and solutions-oriented advice for investing and operating in some of the most challenging jurisdictions.

Career

• Admitted as a solicitor, 1987
• Gouldens (now Jones Day), 1985
• Biddle & Co (now Pinsent Masons), 1993
• General Counsel and Corporation Secretary at CDC Group PLC (now British International Investment), 1995
• Co-founder and director at Africa Legal (now part of Norton Rose Fullbright), 2003
• Partner at Steptoe & Johnson, 2007
• Partner at Michelmores, 2009
• *General Counsel at Phatsia, 2013-2022
• *General Counsel at Agdevco, 2013-2015
• Joined Bates Wells, 2023

*Fulfilled in conjunction with his partnership at Michelmores

Education

• School of Oriental & African Studies, London University – BA (Hons) Law (with Social Anthropology)