Chief Legal Officer - Benchmark Mineral Intelligence - London / Global
(2025-04)
Lead the global legal, regulatory and compliance function as the sole in house legal executive for an international data, price reporting and market intelligence group, advising the Board, CEO, Executive Chairman, CFO, COO and senior leadership on material decisions across the business. King's Award for Enterprise (International Trade) 2024. Benchmark is the world's only PRA dedicated to lithium and EV battery materials to complete a Type 2 IOSCO assurance engagement; its trade verified price assessments underpin ICE lithium and cobalt futures, and its expertise has been called upon by the U.S.
Senate, UK House of Commons and Canadian House of Commons.
- Own commercial contracting for the Group across enterprise subscriptions, proprietary data licensing, consultancy, events, technology, procurement and strategic partnerships with major global corporates, financial institutions, government bodies and other sophisticated counterparties, while preserving confidentiality around customer relationships.
- Protect the value of Benchmark's core data and intellectual property through licensing controls governing permitted use, redistribution, derived data, benchmarking, model inputs, text and data mining, machine learning and generative AI, balancing commercial usability with protection against leakage or replication of proprietary content.
- Rebuilt legal operations around a lean in house model reducing external legal spend by approximately 80% through strategic insourcing, standardisation, playbooks, self-service processes and disciplined use of AI enabled legal technology, with human legal judgement retained for material liabilities and strategic decisions.
- Lead FCA and benchmark regulatory governance as approved SMF16 (Compliance Oversight), SMF17 (MLRO) and SMF29, covering benchmark administration work, SMCR, regulatory notifications and waivers, market conduct controls, conflicts, securities trading frameworks and the annual PwC Type 2 IOSCO assurance process.
- Advise on Board, shareholder and corporate matters including shareholder financing, equity incentives and growth share arrangements, group restructurings, international expansion and entity establishment, strategic investments, corporate authorities and transaction execution across the UK, US, Ireland and other markets.
- Own operational privacy, data governance and policy architecture including DSARs and other rights requests, DPAs and SCCs, cross border transfers, privacy and cookie notices, vendor and security assessments, data incidents, and policies covering privacy, cookies, modern slavery, AI use, sanctions, conflicts and wider governance.
- Build legal frameworks for new products and commercial models including contributor and platform terms, publication and methodology controls, confidentiality and antitrust safeguards, data access rules and responsible AI use; also handle employment, disputes, insurance, reputational risk and other enterprise matters that would typically sit across a larger legal team.
Counsel, Financial Services - Crowell & Moring LLP - London
(2019-06 - 2025-04)
Recognised by The Legal 500 UK as a Leading Associate in Asset Based Lending. Appointed Deputy Money Laundering Reporting Officer (Deputy MLRO). Associate to Jan 2022; promoted to Counsel II.
- Advised on high value cross border financings and corporate restructurings, including a €100 million secured refinancing and subsequent group reorganisation for a global video game services provider, acquisition financings supporting the Hovis and Minova transactions, and super senior leveraged financing for Phenna Group.
- Structured complex acquisition, leveraged and asset-based financings for institutional lenders and sponsor backed transactions across multiple jurisdictions, combining receivables, inventory, plant and machinery, real estate, revolving and cashflow facilities.
- Combined technical delivery with client development, drafting precedent loan documentation suites, delivering market and legal training, supervising trainees and originating three new firm clients.
Associate Solicitor, Financial Services - Squire Patton Boggs (UK) LLP - London
(2015-09 - 2019-06)
- Acted on major cross border and acquisition financings, including a $200 million syndicated credit facility and the first major European FILO transaction, providing up to £265 million of financing to British Steel.
- Selected for a 7½ month secondment to PNC Business Credit, gaining direct in-house experience of lender decision making, risk assessment, documentation and execution.
Trainee Solicitor - Fasken Martineau LLP - London
(2013-09 - 2015-08)
- Training across Corporate, Banking & Corporate Finance, Litigation and Commercial.
