About

Philippa Cottle’s career began in London where she trained at Slaughter and May specialising in international banking and M&A, then moving to CMS Cameron McKenna specialising in corporate finance. She joined the small in-house legal team at Airbus in 1989. During her time at Airbus she put in place a successful trainee partnership with leading aviation firms. Several alumni are now partners in those firms with extensive aviation expertise. Moving to Washington DC in the mid-1990s she worked in business development heading up the Washington DC office of Linklaters working closely with international agencies such as the World Bank. Moving to Ireland after a short stint at William Fry, Cottle joined Blueberry Aviation as its head of legal returning to the aviation world in 2007. Blueberry Aviation is one of the largest trading companies in the helicopter market and has worked with many investors and airlines in civil aviation. In the early 2000s Cottle qualified as a mediator and as a chartered company secretary, skills which she has put to good use. In a fast-changing and expanding aviation sector, she enjoys keeping abreast of commercial and legal developments. She identifies that she has an ‘increased emphasis on educating the sales teams on legal issues so that they are able to deal with and understand how the documents work’ as part of her further internal education initiatives within Blueberry Aviation.