Andrew Marshall
Workshop leader – counsel, A&O Shearman
Arda Tekin
Workshop leader – associate, Cooley (UK) LLP
Arda advises life sciences and tech companies taking on challenges, primarily in the life sciences space. He has particular experience with transactions spanning the entire life cycle of a company – from seed funding and M&A to high-stakes licensing and commercial contracts.
James Mackay
Workshop leader – legal director, Osborne Clarke LLP
James is a legal director in Osborne Clarke’s corporate team, with a particular focus on M&A and private equity transactions, including in the financial services sector.
James has experience of a wide range of corporate transactions, specialising in private M&A and private equity, corporate joint ventures, corporate governance and general corporate advisory matters, having joined OC from the corporate team of a leading US firm.
James’ experience includes acting for corporates, leading financial sponsors and financial institutions on a range of cross-border and domestic transactions ranging from growth equity investments to significant international auction processes.
Cheryl Bee
Panellist – trainee, Cooley
Cheryl Bee is a first-year trainee at Cooley’s London office, currently completing a business litigation seat. Cheryl completed her law degree at the University of Oxford, before completing the Solicitors Qualifying Exam at The University of Law in London.
She completed her summer programme in 2023 and also clerked at the Federal Court of Malaysia before commencing her training. In her free time, Cheryl enjoys exploring London with her friends and boxing.
Alex Sorgo
Workshop leader – associate, Stephenson Harwood LLP
Alex is an associate in the private wealth team, known for guiding clients through complex cross-border tax and succession matters. She works closely with high-net-worth individuals, family offices and trustees, particularly those with interests spanning multiple jurisdictions.
Alex regularly assists clients with structuring their affairs across borders, advising on trusts, succession planning involving family members or assets in different countries, and the tax treatment of offshore entities.
Alex Paterson
Workshop leader – associate, Cooley (UK) LLP
Alex’s practice focuses primarily on the life sciences sector, advising biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical technology companies in a wide range of transactions, many of which have a significant international element.
Alex focuses in particular on commercial matters and intellectual property-based transactions including materials transfer agreements, research and collaboration agreements, and distribution agreements.
Justin Chu
Panellist – trainee, Stephenson Harwood LLP
Justin is a second year trainee in the corporate finance (equity capital markets) team at Stephenson Harwood. His previous two seats were maritime finance and insurance litigation. He studied law at Durham University, graduating in 2023.
Justin completed the SQE at BPP University Law School before starting his training contract in September 2024.
Lucy Ferguson
Panellist – trainee, Jones Day
Lucy is currently a second-year trainee with significant experience of the non-rotational training system at Jones Day. Prior to joining, Lucy completed her undergraduate law degree, before completing her LLM Legal Practice Course at BPP University Law School. Lucy completed a spring vacation scheme at Jones Day in 2023 where she secured a training contract.
Sze-Von Lam
Panellist – trainee, Bristows LLP
Sze-Von joined Bristows LLP as a trainee solicitor in August 2024. Prior to starting her training contract, Sze-Von gained a breadth of experience across the technology and legal sectors. After completing her English degree at the University of Nottingham, she worked as a project manager at an edtech start-up, helping design coding toys before she later went on to intern in-house at a fintech company.
Since joining the firm, Sze-Von has experienced a range of seats, including competition, corporate, tax and employment, and commercial IP/IT/DCL (data, cyber and libel). She has also recently completed a three-month secondment at Google Deepmind.
Alicia Hatvany
Workshop leader – senior associate, Baker McKenzie
Niamh Greene
Workshop leader, associate, RPC
Mythri Reddy
Workshop leader – associate director, Osborne Clarke LLP
Mythri is an associate director in Osborne Clarke’s corporate team. She’s passionate about working with her clients on their business journeys, whether at start-up, growth and expansion, or succession planning or exit.
Mythri advises clients on a broad range of general corporate matters, including general corporate advisory work, and on a range of corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. Much of her work is for clients in the technology, media and communications sector.
Shruti Ajitsaria
Keynote speaker, panellist – partner, A&O Shearman
Shruti is the head of Fuse, A&O Shearman’s tech innovation space. It opened in 2017 to identify and collaborate with LegalTech and FinTech companies relevant to its lawyers and their clients. Prior to launching Fuse, Shruti specialised in credit derivatives (involving drafting almost all of the standard documentation in this area over that decade). Shruti was the first person at A&O Shearman to have directly been promoted to partner into its advanced delivery and solutions group.
Shruti was awarded the Asian Tech Pioneer Award in 2024 and has been included in the Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech three times. She’s also been named on other lists, including the Innovate Finance’s Women in Fintech Powerlist (2023), HERoes Role Model List (2019) and the Financial Times’ 2019 top 10 legal intrapreneurs. 2019 also saw Shruti win the Asian Women of Achievement Award in the professionals category.
Lydia Robinson
Workshop leader, associate, RPC
Adam Howard
Panellist, workshop leader – partner, Winston & Strawn London LLP
Adam is co-chair of Winston & Strawn’s UK capital markets and public company transactions practice. He provides strategic counsel to international bidders, publicly listed targets, major shareholders and financial advisors on high-profile public M&A transactions. In addition, Adam advises issuers, underwriters and controlling shareholders on a wide range of capital markets transactions across multiple sectors.
Simon Maynard
Panellist – partner, King & Spalding
Simon Maynard combines strategic acumen with tenacious advocacy to resolve complex commercial disputes in a way that maximizes commercial impact. Simon focuses his practice on international commercial and investment treaty arbitration, as well as arbitration-related litigation before the English courts, in disputes concerning upstream oil and gas, renewables and the energy transition, mining, aerospace and defence, and financial services. He’s also acknowledged for his international law expertise, in particular in the outer space and deep-sea mining sectors.
Jonathan Conder
Workshop leader – partner, Stephenson Harwood LLP
Jonathan advises individuals, trustees, family offices and private banks on tax, trust, succession planning, governance, immigration and philanthropic issues. He has spent most of his career as a lawyer in private practice, but he also worked for four years as an in-house counsel to a bank in Bermuda.
Karl Hendricks
Panellist – trainee, RPC
Karl is a first-seat trainee at RPC, currently on secondment at Heathrow Airport. After a successful career in marketing and advertising, Karl decided to change careers, beginning a journey to legal qualification in 2020 at the University of Kent.
Since then, Karl has been fortunate enough to paralegal at a high-street firm, complete the Solicitors Qualifying Exam, and paralegal with RPC’s IP and tech team.