Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
I am a commercially strong, practical General Counsel now based in Auckland New Zealand. I have over 31 years of global in-house experience in legal, compliance and commerce across four industries (Law, IT, banking and FMCG.) My experience has predominantly been throughout Africa but with a period based in London. My broad legal and commercial experience has touched on many aspects of law, including material litigation, competition, intellectual property, information technology, property, trade marketing, procurement and mergers. I spent 9 years at IBM South Africa (2.5 of which were in London with IBM UK) 4 years at ABSA/Barclays in Johannesburg, and 11 years at SABMiller (now AB-InBev) also based in Johannesburg. This career has seen me build and develop several diverse, sustainable legal and compliance teams. In addition, my career has required managing and working with Exec management, Exec teams and a broad array of stakeholders to provide them with commercially and legally sound solutions and resolutions to complex problems. My last role was as General Counsel for the South African Breweries (Legal Ethics and Compliance Director for the Africa Zone) where I managed lawyers and compliance officers as well as a substantial annual budget. During my career whilst operating at senior leadership level, my brand has been an open and honest communicator; a tough negotiator who solved problems; addressed stakeholder concerns; performed at a high level, and made difficult ethical decisions. Throughout my career I have endeavored to be a valued partner who understood and managed commercial risk.
Studying Land Law and Equity for New Zealand legal qualification conversion