Team size: 68

Key projects over the past 12 months:

I have been involved in divestments of £7.4bn AUM European Private Equity business to Patria Investments, £4bn AUM US Private Equity business to HighVista, and 50% equity stake in Virgin Money JV to Virgin Group. Acquisition of £600m US closed-end funds from First Trust. The completion of a Part VII FSMA scheme to transfer £3bn of assets from Phoenix Group was another key project.

In one of the largest and most innovative UK transactions of its type, I was involved in the agreement with the Trustee of the Group’s DB pension scheme to unlock part of its significant surplus to fund DC benefits to current employees.

I participated in the extensive reconfiguration of key vendor agreements in relation to market data, the cloud, and applications development as part of a programme to generate at least £150m of efficiency savings.

I was also involved in the formulation of a new corporate sustainability strategy and creation of a firm-wide operating model to support its execution, as well as the establishment of an AI Council (co-chaired by the Group GC) to oversee (including the consideration of legal, regulatory and ethical aspects) the development of AI and ML use cases across the firm.

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

Before taking up my current role, I spent ten years at NatWest Group (then RBS), latterly as its Group Deputy General Counsel. During this period, the bank was rescued by the UK Government and then underwent one of the most radical multi-year restructurings of any large global bank in history. I was heavily involved in much of the significant legal work. I joined Standard Life in 2016 as its Group General Counsel and its journey since then into what is now Aberdeen Group has been complex and no less interesting; in essence from a life insurer into an asset manager and now into a technology-driven wealth and investments business. So, I’ve had the privilege of advising on and leading through two of the most extensive business transformations in UK financial services; both in challenging circumstances but for different reasons.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on, of which you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful?

It is hard to get past AI, particularly GenAI and now Agentic AI. It remains to be seen how profoundly this will affect how we all do business, but we are actively using these technologies, while also experimenting with other use cases and increasing understanding and adoption across the organisation. The other big trend over recent years has been the very high level (and faster pace) of uncertainty and disruption. This makes it even more important to spend time with the team explaining how the macro, technological and competitive environments are changing, their impact on our business, and how we are evolving to respond.

What is a cause, business or otherwise, that you are passionate about?

Financial education (or, specifically, the lack of it) is an area of interest and one that I get to indulge in with my public affairs and sustainability remits. Too large a part of the UK population has an insufficient understanding of economic and financial matters – at both a national and personal level. At the very least, this exacerbates the challenges we face as a society. An allied topic of interest is the focus on rights and entitlements without much mention of duties and obligations.