Career Biography
Geoffrey has been the GC of Legal & General Group Plc since 1999 and also, since 2008, its Company Secretary. Geoffrey originally left school at 16 and returned to education and then university in his 20s. He qualified as a solicitor at Clifford Chance and worked at Clyde & Co before joining L&G. In his role at L&G he has been at the heart of every major issue the company has been involved in for more than 25 years. This has involved leading or overseeing all major corporate activity, including significant M&A and disposals across Europe, US, Asian and the Middle East. Also acting as the lead commercial executive on complex partnerships and exits as well as all on material litigation, regulatory interventions, and mediations. In addition to financial services, his experience has involved real assets, infrastructure, housing healthcare and consumer businesses. Corporate activity has included: the $2bn sale of L&G’s US subsidiary to a Japanese Insurance company; the acquisition and sale of a top ten UK house builder, and the transfer of a major hospital to HM Treasury following L&G having to assume control as creditor. Geoffrey successfully managed the challenge of L&G’s then regulator to the Financial Services and Markets Tribunal – the first such challenge by a major financial services firm. He also directly led the negotiations leading to the overall settlement of claims brought by major institutional shareholders against a major UK Bank arising from its Rights Issue issued just prior to the GFC.
He has frequently been appointed as L&G’s board representative on joint ventures or where L&G has a minority interest shareholding. These currently include its partnership with Oxford University and Pemberton Asset management, a leading European private credit manager.
In his role as Company Secretary he has managed the succession processes for successive Chairs and CEOs and, in turn, become their go-to consigliere.
Finally, he is particularly proud that he has taken what was a very small start-up function within L&G and made it into a pivotal part of L&G’s success and proud, in particular, that not only is it seen as a talent pool for senior positions across L&G, but it retains its “family and health” first approach to work/life balance. Diversity has been at the heart of this, and a succession of talented female lawyers have joined L&G from private practice and gone onto senior business and functional roles within L&G or to senior GC positions in other companies. As one very able colleague who worked for him for 16 years has commented, she “was promoted twice whilst each time being away on maternity leave”.