RISING STARS: GCS OF TOMORROW

Jonathan Keen is senior counsel at Dialight, a FTSE-listed technology company specialising in electrical products. Before joining Dialight in 2017, Keen served as assistant GC at biotech company Vectura Group, where he oversaw its merger with Skyepharma to create a new business with a market cap in excess of £1bn. Trevor Phillips, executive chair of hVIVO Services and former chief operating officer of Vectura, says Keen was ‘fundamental in providing both legal and business advice during one of the most important years of the organisation’s history’, adding: ‘Rarely, if ever, have I come across as good a strategic thinking young lawyer.’ Paul Ranson, former GC of Vectura, says Keen ‘demonstrated an ability to take on an exceptionally high level of responsibility for someone of his experience – something that was only possible through the high levels of trust that I and the CFO had in his professional judgement’. Keen recently founded a new industry group, Next Generation Counsel, which seeks to prepare young lawyers for life in-house.