About

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last two years?

With over 28 years’ experience in property investment and funds management, Charter Hall is one of Australia’s leading fully integrated property groups. Charter Hall applies its property expertise to access, deploy, manage and invest equity across its core sectors – office, retail, industrial and social infrastructure.

In addition to the Charter Hall Group, I am responsible for legal and company secretarial matters across the Charter Group, comprising three listed real estate investment trusts (REITs) and a host of unlisted wholesale funds and partnerships, and unlisted direct retail funds.

Over the past two years, Charter Hall has accessed over A$5.1bn of gross equity flows. Charter Hall has sourced this capital through capital raisings across listed, wholesale and unlisted retail funds. The diverse sources of capital ensure that Charter Hall is well positioned to take advantage of attractive opportunities.

Over the last two years, Charter Hall has been responsible for over A$8.5bn of gross property transactions. Throughout this, I have successfully led a team of legal and governance professionals to partner with the broader business on all aspects of Charter Hall’s strategy to access, deploy, manage and invest alongside its listed, retail and wholesale investors for shared growth.

The last two years have included some significant and iconic transactions for the Group and its funds. These include the A$1.5bn acquisition of Chifley Plaza, one of Australia’s most identifiable office precincts, acquired in partnership with GIC, Singapore’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. I also have been involved in the company’s 2018 acquisition of listed property group Folkestone, by scheme of arrangement. Finally, I was involved in the establishment of new partnership to acquire a 49% interest stake in the Telstra Property portfolio.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

Effective legal advice can never be provided in a vacuum and it is vitally important for in-house lawyers to understand the business in order that their advice is commercially relevant. Where external lawyers are engaged, in-house lawyers play an important role in bridging the gap between legal considerations and commercial drivers. Strong relationships with business partners develop where in-house lawyers are culturally aligned with the business and can demonstrate an ability to assist in implementing strategy whilst navigating legal risk.

What do you predict will be the biggest change in the legal market in your sector over the next few years?

Alternative billing models and increased firm outsourcing of legal processing will be disrupters to the traditional law model, but this will provide opportunities for corporates to drive efficiencies and cost savings.

What “legal tech” products do you currently utilise, and do you foresee implementing more of these in the near future?

Charter Hall’s legal team is actively engaged with its IT division and external legal providers to take advantage of emerging tech products. In many cases, there is a still a way to go before the benefits of implementing these products outweighs the implementation costs.

How much influence do you, as a general counsel, have on the diversity and inclusions policies of your organisation

Charter Hall recognises that fostering a diverse and inclusive workforce is critical to the achievement of its corporate goals. As company secretary, I work closely with the Boards in considering the policies to reflect this.

Are you taking any special measures to deal with data protection and cybersecurity within your organisation?

Charter Hall has a comprehensive cyber and data security programme following ISO27001 principles that is managed across the broader organisation. This includes the following:

• Employee awareness training;

• Policy and governance frameworks both internal and supplier based;

• Risk management practises;

• Ongoing physical and technical security hardening in response to evolving threats;

• Going forward we see data security as a rapidly changing and diverse environment, and we are committed and prepared to continually evolve our data and cyber practises in response.