Intro from Adam Zdravkovic, In-House Legal Manager at Think Legal Recruitment
This is our long-awaited update covering the past six months or so of activity. We'll go back a bit further than usual because of the summer - probably all the way to the start of 2025 actually, with a focus on permanent moves into/out of North West teams... Moving forward, we will be providing quarterly updates to keep you regularly informed across the whole of IN-HOUSE NORTH!
Our most exciting news is the expansion of the Think Legal in-house team, allowing us to dedicate even more of our time and focus to our lovely in-house legal clients across the North West, Yorkshire and the North East (and further afield too - we have big plans across the UK). Please join me in extending a warm welcome to Andy Balmer! He's already proven a great success and we're very lucky to have him.
Any moves or promotions that I've omitted, I don't mean to offend, please let me know. It's hard to keep track of all of the moves across the North and I don't use robotic beings or clever tech. Think Legal, Keeping it Human since 2016.
Market Moves
Beth Sutcliffe - Congratulations on your move from one Sinclair to another. This time to Kina Sinclair's growing team at Manchester based investment management company AJ Bell.
The lovely Philip Kreczak, who has danced around the sectors over the years, from looking after property portfolios at sausage roll and pastry purveyors Greggs and sports fashion specialists JD Sports Fashion, is now at Village Hotels.
Rebecca Beech is now Legal Counsel in Laura Lovell's team at Chiesi UK (we hear great things about this team!) after making her first in-house move from JMW Solicitors LLP's Corporate function.
TLT LLP's Sam Jones made a move as M&A Counsel to Azets (one that I hadn't heard of, but they provide accountancy, tax, audit, payroll, and business advisory services).
Susanne Ball is in a Senior Commercial Lawyer role at NEC Software Solutions.
Previously at DWF (UK and Ireland) and briefly at the very cool Cadillac Formula 1® Team, Chantal Charnock is now at Manchester United, as is Lucy Houghton from Addleshaw Goddard. Sam Smith transferred from Man Utd to Liverpool Football Club.
Caroline Brennan is now Head of IP at PZ Cussons in her first in-house move - this is awesome.
An absolutely lovely gent, Mamun Rashid is now at Chubb Fire & Security after moving on from EG Group.
Yet another Corporate Solicitor making their first in-house move to Debenhams Group in Olivia Barrow. This version of Debenhams is very different to the Debenhams that I remember browsing in 10+ years ago... "John Rocha" one of my personal faves!
Bea Wadsworth joined the solid legal function at ever growing THG, as did Kate Gardner. Then a move away from THG in Charlotte Rhodes who started with Yodel (Yodel Delivery Network Ltd).
Steph Peña moved to Sodexo. Transport for Greater Manchester continue to grow their in-house legal team with the appointment of Elizabeth O'Leary from Kuits.
We're seeing more and more returners to in-house teams, including Ben McDowall who is now Corporate Counsel at IGT after 3 years at N Brown Group. We're always impressed to see these returner moves - it's a strong endorsement of company culture and signals great employee satisfaction. Another company which has a particularly strong record of this is Pets at Home.
After 5+ years at Cheshire based SINCLAIR PHARMACEUTICALS LIMITED, Lucy Benson is now Senior Legal Counsel at CooperVision.
The defence sector is particularly strong at present due to all the mad stuff out there, and BAE Systems continued growing their team with the appointment of Ryan Thomas from canned crab and tinned tuna purveyors Princes Group. Another leaver from Princes Group was Jessica Brierton who joined Liverpool Football Club.
Cal Hopkins joined Ben Damm's Home Instead legal function.
Handelsbanken recruited Ashlee Simms into a Disputes, Debt Recovery and Litigation role from Addleshaw Goddard.
Nicola Groom made a start with Matalan - she also wrote a really nice post about leaving Chetwood Bank, which sounds like a lovely employer. Jade Sinnett joined Certas Energy, another leaver from Chetwood Bank.
Emma Walmsley was recruited by Project Better Energy - this company is brilliant, based in Derby and specialising in the renewable energy sector. She will be working closely with the ace Gillian Hill.
Emma Deighan is in a really interesting role as Head of Employee Relations at City Football Group!
Paulina Funk made a move to the superbly named University of Manchester Innovation Factory.
Bestway Healthcare UK recruited Michael Taylor as Senior Legal Counsel from Boohoo Group PLC.
Zahid Ali is Legal Counsel at quite unique aviation sector business AeroCloud.
Atabey Akgok joined Calum Redhead at Nomupay, a really nice and talented in-house team.
The superb Nicholas Ball joins Paul Shutler and Sunil Puri at EET Fuels in a real estate focused role.
Sian Cosgrove is now in the Manchester based legal team at Barclays Corporate Banking, after moving from Eversheds Sutherland.
IVCC (Innovative Vector Control Consortium) recruited sarah cave and she will join the brilliant Terri-lee Allman and David Worrall.
Rike Ridings joined Nuclear Transport Solutions as Legal Counsel from Weightmans.
Employment law expert David Birchett moves to Confluent after moving on from Manchester based BNY.
Another Manchester based employment lawyer, Katie Craven, moved to OneStream Software.
Nicole Marie Kitching joins excellent GC Zak Daliri at Corsearch - they do wonderful things to protect brand & consumers from counterfeits, scams, impersonations & IP infringements.
GC and other Senior Movements
Sarah Petrie is now GC at Debenhams Group!
Melanie Ashworth was made Group Head of Legal at Quint Group . They have an absolutely brilliant legal team there.
Kelly Clarke! Congratulations. Your first in-house move, and it's a big one. Straight to Head of Legal Group at MAG (Airports Group). Also joining MAG was Rebecca Bainbridge as Senior Legal Counsel.
Another Clarke, this time Ruth Clarke is now Legal Manager at TotalEnergies.
Fiona Smith is now Head of Legal and Carolyn Blanchard GC at Outcomes First Group. I didn't know this company before looking it up, but it provides care for about 750 young people and adults with autism, complex and Social Emotional and Mental Health needs. Amazing!
Amy Stirton, an experienced housing litigator, is now at One Manchester as Head of Legal!
Fiona Houghton moved to Cavendish Nuclear as Head of Legal, after some time at defence giant BAE Systems.
Matthew McDaid-Jones was promoted into the Head of Legal position at UK-based InsurTech firm INSTANDA.
Christel Banks is now at leading telecoms providers and UK Critical Infrastructure Provider Cellnex UK
The Pebble Group plc, leading provider of digital commerce, products and related services to the global promotional products industry, took on Matthew Langford from Oliver James.
After 10+ years with Boohoo Group PLC in Manchester, Tom Kershaw took a Commercial Partner role at Foot Anstey - I really liked his post about how he's finding life back in practice. All the best Tom.
Two celebrations are due for Julia Gurry at GBG Plc. (1) She was made Head of Legal (EMEA) recently, and (2) she has spent a decade with the company!
The team at Radius has changed a little. Elizabeth Parkinson is working as Head of Legal with GC Michael McClenan.
Josh Nock was made Head of Legal at Forge Holiday Group.
We have our first (maybe) Presidential appointment in the North of England! Kyle Quinn was made President at Clarke Energy (now under Rehlko ownership) after 10+ years with the company. Joining the team at Clarke was Eleanor Pearce-Wheeler from Addleshaw Goddard.
Amy Nokes (née Seddon) is now Assistant General Counsel at IGT, an exceptional achievement for somebody who qualified in 2017.
The excellent Lucie Grant, previously with Dura-Line is now Group GC and Co Sec at biotech company Genus PLC.
It looks like Shez Anjum has found his dream job. He is now General Counsel at Classic Football Company Ltd. Hopefully the employee discount has kicked in by now and he's picked up a good collection of classic Arsenal shirts.
Sarah Gwyndaf Roberts is Director of Legal & Governance at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
Charlotte Jackson is Head of Legal at ExamWorks UK - another great returner!
Zeno Operations looks like a really smart business providing finance, compliance, operations and marketing for recruitment agencies - Lauren Fitzpatrick joined as Head of Legal and Compliance.
Well done to Mark Foster for his promotion to General Counsel at THG Ingenuity after almost 14 years within THG.
Experienced GC Sarah Clayton has been a big part of The Beauty Tech Group (CurrentBody, ZIIP, Tria) going public on the LSE! Apparently the first British beauty tech brand to go public.
James Benson, formerly of Handelsbanken fame (I think after around 10 years there!), is now General Counsel at Nera Capital Limited.
Stuart Kelly is now Legal Director at Great British Energy - Nuclear - there has been lots of movement in this sector of late. Sarah Pownceby also joined the team from Addleshaw Goddard.
Experienced GC Nicola Wignall-Jennings is now Services and Legal Director at Abbey Logistics Group.
Paul Taylor has moved into a Head of Legal role within the Commercial and DP team at The Football Association.
Ever growing Softcat, the business side led by Jack Beech has recruited a couple of senior commercial lawyers in Victoria Barker and Heather Rowley (nee Dyson). Also Alice Loftus and Alistair Metcalfe have joined the team. Debra Coady's legal team at Softcat actually won Business Operations Team of the Year at the company's annual "Kick Off" event last weekend. Awesome work from a very nice bunch of people.
In Summary
It's a pretty difficult time to be a recruiter in most industries including Legal - a heady mix of low business confidence and cost challenges are meaning that fewer companies are expanding their workforces, and job vacancies across the UK have shrunk to a low level. You just have to look at the likes of big rec giants PageGroup (13.5% drop in revenue last year, reduced headcount by 500 people), Robert Walters (16% drop in revenue, 17% reduction in headcount) to work out what's going on in the wider jobs market.
As niche in-house legal recruiters, mine and Andy Balmer's focus has been on finding quality hires for replacement roles and also towards the senior end of the market - e.g. Senior Legal Counsel and Head of Legal hires. And of course being more consultative than ever. As an example, we recently introduced one head of legal in the tech sector to another, with the aim of sharing ideas and common challenges for legal team leaders. Please use us for this - we're very happy to intro or help in alternative ways outside our usual recruitment focus.
Interestingly, some GCs are starting to report that their bosses and leadership teams are encouraging them to invest in AI and other legal tech as an alternative to recruiting (particularly at the junior end). These senior legal leaders are sometimes pushing back, usually on the time investment required (it's not usually plug and play - it can require a significant learning period except for very specific uses). It will be really interesting to see what happens to the junior end of the market and whether more legal AI specialists are recruited as opposed to junior commercial solicitors and trainee solicitors, across both law firms and in in-house functions.
Sectors in demand are Energy, Defence, Pharma, Tech/Software and Healthcare. Skillsets in demand are Commercial of course. But there have been loads of Corporate moves too! Mostly at the senior end and from Manchester law firms. Also Employment has been strong, particularly at the senior end again, although lots have had to look outside the North West for the right opportunities.
A notable difference in this edition of IHLN is the number of senior hires going on. It felt like the lack of these hires and moves was a challenge for a while, so it's good to see things becoming unplugged again. Hopefully this means more hiring within teams in good time.
More and more individuals are training in-house and moving in-house on qualification as NQs, like Erin Lightfoot who joined Innospec Inc. after training at Chetwood Financial Limited and Megan Murray who was trained and retained by EG On The Move / EG Group. This is great to see, and I think it's a nice thing for in-house teams to be able to train juniors their style rather than having to "knock the private practice out of them" (not my words).
Have a great Autumn and Winter season ahead! Look forward to catching up with all of you over the next few months about YOUR HIRING PLANS FOR 2026! Let's see what happens in the Budget at the end of November.
Adam Z
