I was recently promoted to Of Counsel in the financial markets and regulatory group at Reed Smith, specialising in wholesale financial and commodities regulation. I am a recognised expert on European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) and the Regulation on Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) implementation issues, for example, through my work for the European Federation of Energy Traders.
I started life as a qualified lawyer at Slaughter and May 14 years ago as a corporate finance associate. Just over 5 years on, I was seconded to Shell Treasury and joined Shell full time at the end of 2006. From there I moved to Shell Trading. During my 6 years at Shell, my practice covered derivatives, corporate finance, energy commodities trading and regulation. My love of financial markets regulation brought me to Reed Smith at the beginning of 2014.
Since then, I’ve spent my time helping a huge variety of clients to negotiate and respond to the unprecedented scale, pace and complexity of the regulatory changes that are affecting financial and commodities markets. I enjoy the constant challenge of applying my hands-on experience of in-house practice to identify what’s important to clients in a sea of regulatory reform and help them respond and plan accordingly. At a high level, this involves spotting trends and themes in regulation and the differing approaches of various regulators. At the same time, it involves being able to communicate complicated, dense and highly technical regulatory requirements in a way that’s easy to digest, practical and commercial.
I also really enjoy the opportunities being back in private practice has given me to work with and help to develop junior lawyers, as a trainee and intern supervisor, a mentor and through my work on the trainee and vacation scheme assessment panel.