What are the most significant cases, projects, or transactions that you and your legal team have recently been involved in?

Over the past year, my legal team has supported some of The Guardian’s most impactful accountability journalism in the United States, ensuring that our reporting is both fearless and legally sound. We collaborate closely with editors and reporters from the earliest stages of investigations through to publication and beyond, facilitating stories that have resulted in tangible change: legislation enacted, abusive practices halted, charges dismissed, and powerful actors held to account for misconduct. Our efforts have been particularly focused on enabling reporting that scrutinises the current administration and its allies, while robustly defending that journalism when challenged.

A standout matter was our successful defence of The Guardian against Trump Media’s USD$250 million defamation claim, which was dismissed at the motion-to-dismiss stage—a significant victory for press freedom. That outcome exemplifies our approach as a legal function: decisive, disciplined litigation defence, clear-eyed risk assessment, and close editorial partnership, allowing our newsroom to undertake high-impact public interest reporting without being deterred by legal threats.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

I take a proactive, scenario-driven approach to managing legal risk during periods of instability, with a focus on preparedness rather than reaction. Since November 2024, I have led a cross-newsroom working group for the Guardian’s US operation, bringing together senior leaders from editorial, information security, facilities, and operations to respond to a rapidly changing political and legal landscape. The group is designed to ensure we are ready for a wide range of risks, from physical safety concerns and on-site security issues to immigration detention, cyber harassment, and legal escalation tied to our reporting.

Alongside this, I led a comprehensive re-evaluation of our insurance coverage to ensure it remains fit for purpose amid escalating litigation risk. I have also overseen the development of a detailed risk matrix to identify, assess, and mitigate threats, supported by regular tabletop exercises, scenario planning, and extensive newsroom training. Together, these efforts have strengthened institutional resilience while protecting our people and our journalism.

We are currently living through a time of geopolitical change, and the world order that we have come to take for granted for many years is being rewritten. Does this affect your company’s risk profile and, if so, what are you doing to mitigate this

Yes — geopolitical shifts have materially heightened our risk profile, particularly in the United States. The Guardian, while headquartered in the UK, employs a significant number of staff who operate on visas or travel regularly to the US to report. The current administration’s unprecedented attacks on non-citizens and on individuals exercising their First Amendment rights have generated real legal and personal risk for our journalists. In response, I have led extensive mitigation measures, including global training on cross-border travel, immigration risk, secure communications, and strategies to minimise the risk of detention or deportation. In practice, this has required me to act, effectively, as an immigration lawyer for the Guardian’s US operation and for our international staff reporting there — ensuring that our journalists can continue their work safely in a far less predictable environment.

What is a cause, business or otherwise, that you are passionate about? Why is this? Free speech?

Free speech and press freedom are causes I care about deeply, and I see what is at stake every day in my work. I have written publicly about the erosion of press freedom in the US and the growing use of litigation and political pressure to intimidate journalists and suppress scrutiny. Those tactics are designed to chill our reporting, and they only succeed if news organisations retreat.

This issue is also a personal one for me. When a powerful healthcare company recently sued the Guardian over its reporting on nursing home oversight, we stood by our journalism and continued reporting, uncovering further allegations of serious harm. At the same time, my own family was navigating long-term care for my father, which made the real-world stakes of that reporting impossible to ignore. Defending press freedom in moments like that is not abstract — it is about refusing to be intimidated and ensuring journalists can continue asking hard questions that affect people’s lives.