About

Team size: 36
Major law firms used: Clifford Chance, CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang, Herbert Smith Freehills, Linklaters, Norton Rose Fulbright, Taylor Wessing

You would have to go a long way to find someone in the City with the same breadth of experience as Margaret Cole. Prior to taking up the dual role of GC and chief risk officer at Big Four firm PwC in 2012, Cole was head of the Financial Services Authority’s enforcement and crime division, making her London’s top enforcer. Add to that a robust private practice career: between 1995 and 2000 she led the enterprising dispute resolution team at White & Case’s London office.

With this background, Cole has overseen a sea change in the profile of the in-house legal function at PwC. A significant amount of Cole’s lawyers are newly appointed, younger professionals with a background in technology. Some of them were even lawyers at legal tech start-ups. She argues this was necessary to keep up with the modern legal environment: ‘The areas of GDPR and cyber security are so important right now. Bringing in lawyers with a background in these areas becomes a necessary challenge.’

Like any of the major auditors, most of Cole’s time in 2018 was consumed by regulatory investigations. In recent years, notable probes have included two by the Financial Reporting Council, in relation to PwC’s auditing of both BT and BHS. Cole says: ‘We have an intense eye on the audit market. My background as a regulator enables me to look at the whole picture from different perspectives.’

Cole has a lot of responsibility at PwC, with the legal function, risk team and a corporate affairs team all reporting in to her. In this sense, Cole embodies a wider trend of GCs taking on responsibilities outside of a traditional legal adviser. However, she does not see this as a bad thing: ‘If you have a broad background when you become a GC, it naturally lends itself to not having your skills restricted to just legal risk. I sit on the executive board and I often find myself having to advise on all manner of things because of my background. You can’t be too lawyerly!’