General Counsel & Company Secretary: Case Study
Background
Our client, a rapidly growing RegTech business, sought to hire its first in-house lawyer in the role General Counsel & Company Secretary, following a significant private equity investment.
Having experienced substantial growth since in its first 10 years, including expansion into international markets and a strategic investment from a US-based private equity firm, the company needed to establish a robust in-house legal and compliance function.
Owing to having the right professional background, the CEO had previously handled all legal matters, including contract negotiations, compliance and data protection responsibilities, with the assistance of external legal advisors. However, now, with turnover projected to double to £30M by 2025 and planned expansion into multiple European markets, the business required dedicated legal leadership to support its ambitious growth trajectory both here in the UK and internationally.
Challenge
The primary challenges in this search centred around three key factors:
- Finding a candidate with the versatility and breadth of experience to be able to balance both legal and compliance responsibilities effectively – particularly given the company’s position in the highly regulated financial services and technology sectors.
- Identifying someone with the right combination of corporate M&A and commercial contracts expertise, together with a deep understanding of data protection regulations, since the role would involve a significant amount GDPR compliance work, given the data led nature of the company’s work.
- Securing a candidate with the leadership capabilities to build out a future legal and compliance department while maintaining hands-on involvement in day-to-day legal matters.
The position required someone who could not only manage complex supplier and customer contracts but also serve as Data Protection Officer and oversee the company’s regulatory compliance framework. This unusual combination of responsibilities demanded a particularly versatile legal professional and certain a level of seniority.
Solution
Following comprehensive briefings with key stakeholders, including the Managing Director, CEO, and board representatives, we developed a detailed candidate profile focusing on lawyers with both private practice and in-house experience in technology or financial services in their career histories.
Our search strategy encompassed:
- Targeting candidates with 8+ years post-qualification experience who had demonstrable expertise in commercial contracts and data protection
- Focusing on individuals who had previously worked in technology-driven environments
- Emphasising the opportunity to shape a legal function from scratch and potentially build a team as the company expanded.
The successful appointment came from an initial shortlist of eight candidates, resulting in three individuals who progressed to final stage interviews. As predicted after the first stage, this served to confirm that there was one clear ‘stand-out’ candidate – even though the other two were incredibly strong.
The appointee had begun their career in a top international law firm as a corporate M&A lawyer, later moving in-house as General Counsel and Company Secretary within the financial services industry. Their most recent position was as part of a global bank, where their focus had been on legal and compliance operations – particularly centred on contracts, procurement, technology and data protection. Key to their selection was their vision for how a legal and compliance function would be developed to support the company’s international expansion plans, drawing from their experience in businesses of at least a similar size and growth potential.
