Team size: 250

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

Obtaining a UK Bank Licence, Australian Bank Licence, French Bank Licence, as well as obtaining other permissions and licences to conduct regulated activities in multiple markets. I also conducted a $75bn valuation secondary financing and a $115bm valuation secondary financing.

Please provide a brief description of any internal transformation/development projects within your legal team over the last twelve months.

We designed, built and deployed a number of proprietary AI tools for the team across regulatory, corporate and governance, and commercial and launched a new external legal engagement process called “Revolut Partners”; Hired 50+ new lawyers in existing and new markets. I continue to champion and support initiatives, including Revolut’s SRA authorised Trainee Program, as well as external initiatives such as Aspiring Solicitors. I am an active contributor and sponsor to a number of Guilds (including Pride and Parents & Carers).

What key trends should in-house counsel be monitoring over the coming months?

How the switch to consumption-based pricing for AI services in private practice will impact in-house billing rates.

The role of general counsel (GC) has evolved significantly into that of a strategic business partner. How do you balance commercial objectives with legal risk?

I tend to split my weeks, so that the first half of the week I’m focused “internally” on the Global Legal Function and the second half of the week I’m focused “externally” on my Executive responsibilities, sitting on the Executive Committee, Risk Committee and New Initiatives Committee, as well fulfilling my Executive Director responsibilities on the Boards of the Australian entity, Swiss entity and American entity.

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?

Resilience and a good sense of humour. It’s also fundamental that any modern GC understands the commercials that drive the core financials (business lines), as well as how the product works, including any key dependencies.

How do you use AI within your legal team to improve efficiency while maintaining quality, governance and integrity? How do you think AI will impact in-house legal functions more widely?

We use it all the time, be it in research, monitoring team performance, preparing reports both internally and for our external stakeholders, the generation of summaries and templates, playbooks, negotiations in complex M&A transactions and the review of minutes and materials for governance. We have strict guidelines around application and scrutinise all outputs. We view it as an additive but not replacing the work of our lawyers.

With increasing regulatory complexity across jurisdictions, how do you embed compliance across the business?

It’s key to ensure there’s accountability across the entire organisation, especially so in compliance. That means named accountable individuals that have to review and sign-off or risk accept positions. Properly embedding these individuals and having a clear delineation between risk creaters/owners and risk reviews (the first versus second line of defence) is paramount.

In which areas do compliance most commonly break down, and how do you address these risks?

It always breaks down where accountability is not clear.

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

This is always going to be a challenge, but that’s where it’s important to have very transparent and direct conversations with your stakeholders and to be clear with parameters of what is capable within the law/guidelines and to work together to find a suitable solution.

How do you help drive strong governance and ethical decision-making across your organisation?

By constantly challenging accepted ways of thinking and by wecloming diverse thought and different opinions. Don’t listen to the loudest voice in the room, instead dig into the data – the numbers underlying the assumptions – it’s very difficult to argue with facts!

What are the key risks or challenges your legal team is preparing for over the next twelve months?

The scale and complexity of our product offering and the markets that we operate in.

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

There have been a few! I would say any time where you have to accept that mistakes or failures are a result of your decision-making ,or the way you’ve built or designed a system, is challenging. But it’s how you respond to that, and that’s why I really push for a culture of constant improvement and am very weary of a culture where there’s a theatre of success.

Beyond your legal role, is there a cause or initiative you are especially passionate about?

Professional development for young / new lawyers in a legal services world that has totally been upended by the developments of AI.