Team size: 7 lawyers globally

What are the key projects you have been involved in over the past twelve months?

The completion at the end of January 2026 of Soho House & Co’s take-private transaction, including the delisting from the NYSE, US$245m of new equity and a $1bn refinancing was a standout project that I had the privilege of leading. Having also led the IPO of the company back in 2021 and navigated life as a publicly listed company on the NYSE for 5 years, the successful transition of the company from public back to private ownership was a defining moment for both the company and me.
I sat at the heart of this complex and multi-jurisdictional transaction, spanning over 12 months managing a wide range of stakeholders across many time zones (!), competing priorities and significant execution risk. I was the glue between the Board, management and operations and it was my job to maintain a clear strategic focus and bring structure and discipline to a fast-paced and high-pressure process all whilst still doing my ‘day job’. As complex as this transaction, was with the curveballs and bumps that it delivered along the way, key to its success was my ability to simplify the most complex issues for the Board, management and operations whilst always delivering solution-orientated advice with the businesses’ objectives front and centre of every decision.
When not leading the charge on the take-private transaction, the highlight for me over the last 12 months has been executing on the development growth strategy of the business. We’ve opened some wonderful new Soho Houses in London, Ibiza, Manchester and Tokyo. It’s been a rollercoaster of a year with a lean but very talented group of lawyers in my team (each of whom I’m very thankful for!).
Please provide a brief description of any internal transformation/development projects within your legal team over the last twelve months, such as AI usage, new legal panels, expansion/restructuring of legal team, DE&I initiatives etc.
I play an active role at Soho House & Co partnering internally and supporting the wider businesses’ diversity and inclusion initiatives. This is something I foster at all levels of my legal team and I ensure it forms part of our annual objectives. I’m committed to developing and mentoring underrepresented talent and my legal team work hard to build on this and we have been involved in successful partnerships including the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation, the Social Mobility Business Partnership charity and the Global Counsel Forum.
AI is something none of us can avoid not being a part of. Internally my team has been reviewing tools and going through a tender process for the best part of 2026 to not only make life in our legal team more efficient and effective but also focused on how we drive change and culture within the wider business and its operations; whether on understanding contracts and their value, communicating with legal or managing risk. The partnership between legal and the wider business has meant we’ve been able to conduct our exploration on AI transformation in close alignment with teams like procurement and digital which should result in the implementation of a tool that benefits not just legal but the objectives of the wider business. A key focus for me is ensuring that any initiative or tool builds stronger bridges within the business and enhances how we communicate. AI is a means of doing all of this and not just saving time and reducing costs (both of which are equally important).

What are the most important attributes of the modern GC and what advice would you give to those aspiring to be an in-house lawyer?

A modern GC needs to be effective at relationship building and a strong communicator. This builds trust and is critical to the success of any in-house lawyer trying to drive change and to have a voice that is listened to and has influence within the business.
Relationship building will open up doors within your business to ensure you, as the lawyer, are in the right rooms and in the right conversations at the right time to begin with. I spent the first 6-12 months of my life as in-house counsel getting to know and collaborating with all key stakeholders and business leaders and understanding their objectives. I have continued this exercise for the last decade!
Being a strong communicator isn’t about being the loudest in the room. It’s about understanding your audience (which can vary across business units and levels of your organisation), being able to flex to that audience and communicate in a way that is going to be understood and listened to. If you’re applying the same style to everyone in the business it likely means you’re not being as effective as you could be. My advice to any aspiring in-house lawyer is to spend as much time as possible with the business units and teams that you’re advising (not just when there is a transaction, a crisis or fire to put out) – invite them to your legal team meetings, join theirs, get time on the floor with operations; understand their objectives and targets and give them the opportunity to understand how legal is aligned with their own goals and objectives. It sounds simple but this will allow you the opportunity to build that trust, develop an authentic relationship and to tailor your communication style to your audience.
If business units are trying to navigate around the legal team, its often down to a lack of a relationship and/or communication channels between the teams which can also lead to misconceived perceptions of legal teams as the ‘no department’ amongst others!

How do you manage situations where legal advice and commercial objectives conflict?

Managing situations where legal advice and commercial objectives conflict is a typical day in the life of an in-house lawyer! For me, driving the right result is down to ensuring that the ultimate decision made is an informed one. This goes back to how I set myself up to operate effectively. Firstly, my ability to get involved in the conversation early is critical; this allows me to fully assess the business’s appetite for risk on a particular issue as the conflict will often boil down to what level of risk the business is willing to accept. Secondly, ensuring that I’m always across the business objectives (strategically, financially, reputationally and operationally) so I can then define the level of risk tolerance which is the sensitive but crucial part of the GC role and this comes with time and experience. Thirdly, my relationship building and stakeholder management within the business which ensures that I can achieve the first two goals as my ability to get involved early and understand the objectives are down to the foundations I’ve built with the Board, management and the business teams. This is why I believe the focus on relationship building and true stakeholder management and partnering is such a vital part of the role of a modern day GC.

Have you had any particularly unique or defining experiences during your legal career? What has been your biggest career challenge or highlight?

My career highlight are the people I get to work with every day in my role at Soho House & Co. It sounds cliched but given the industry and the global nature of what I do, I have the opportunity to work with the most diverse group of talented individuals across management and operations. I work in a business where the relationship between the customer (our members) and the business is so unique and as a consequence throws up a vast array of challenges, experiences and human emotion that most lawyers would only see play out on a Netflix TV show, although I won’t be commenting on them!
From navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and shuttering an entire global hospitality business then reopening (hospitality being one of the worse hit businesses during Covid and dealing with the human element that went with all of this); to taking the world’s most global private membership club to the public markets; to navigating a short-seller report as a public company; to executing one of the most complex and strategically significant transactions in the hospitality and membership sector in recent years, these have all been career defining moments for me.