Team size: 20

What are the most significant cases and/or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Our Leeds-based digital legal services team sits at the heart of HSBC’s global contracting and operational resilience, supporting an average of 4,000 contracts annually, with a combined value of approximately US$20bn. We support the Group’s CIO and COO on the full spectrum of technology and commercial issues including real estate, disputes, incident response, outsourcing, intra-group arrangements, M&A and AI.

Here is a selection of recent projects the team has led out of my Leeds team across our areas of work. To begin with, transitional services arrangements for HSBC’s US$16bn. divestment of its Canadian banking operations, and the sale of our UK life insurance business.

On real estate, we got new leases for our new global headquarters and business continuity sites in London, together with associated construction contracts (one of the largest real estate transactions in the London market).

Regarding incident response, we have supported major confidential third-party cyber incidents and negotiating contracts to strengthen operational resilience.

Our team also achieved global multi-year partnership with LIV Golf, expanding HSBC’s sports sponsorship portfolio.

Lastly, we managed major technology contracts. Strategic partnership with Mistral AI to accelerate AI adoption across the bank alongside support for all major infrastructure deals with Microsoft, AWS and other key vendors.

What do you see as an opportunity or risk over the next six months?

I pride myself on not being predictable or following the crowd, but it would be dishonest to say the answer is anything other than the adoption and governance of AI. I am deeply involved in AI for legal, which is genuinely exciting, but also in contracting for AI that the bank is purchasing – which brings its own risks. The challenge for leaders is to keep our people at the centre of this transformation in a way that feels positive – ensuring they continue to learn, develop new skills, and feel equipped for what lies ahead. Maintaining morale and a sense of pride in our work will be just as important as mastering the technology itself. The opportunity is to learn new skills and areas of law but the risk is that we don’t successfully train the lawyers, existing and of the future so they can use AI while still learning and developing.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

I believe strongly that effective leadership means knowing what to stop, not just what to change. I introduced a Legal Referral Assessment, built into our intake tool at no cost, which uses risk-based questions to determine which contracts require legal review. This has reduced the volume of contracts coming to lawyers by 40% – without increasing risk, thanks to clear guidance and targeted training for business users – freeing the team to focus on higher-value, strategic work. Crucially, embedding this in our process means we can continuously monitor and adapt – adding new risk triggers as they emerge or expanding self-service where appropriate.

As the legal landscape evolves, what steps are you taking to foster a culture of continuous learning and development within the legal team, ensuring that they are all well-equipped to address future legal complexities?

I run regular sprints, retrospectives, and weekly ‘fixathon’ sessions with my team. As an example, in a 30-minute fixathon we focus on making small changes to things that frustrate us or share new ways of working i.e. demonstrating a good prompt in an AI tool. While I initiate these sessions, what has been created is a forum for team members to lead projects, make decisive changes and build capabilities that prepare us for emerging legal challenges. By encouraging people to step outside their comfort zones and just test things out (even if it doesn’t always go well!) – I’m cultivating an environment of adaptability to ensure the team continues to evolve. I am a firm believer in always trying to do a bit better tomorrow than you do today. My people management approach has been recognised through exceptional 360-degree feedback, with team members noting I foster ‘high performance, innovation and improvement.