Clifford Chance (CC) has made two senior appointments as managing partner Matthew Layton (pictured) has unveiled a new strategic plan that puts innovation and change at the centre of the firm's future.

Caroline Firstbrook is set to join the firm next month as chief operating officer, succeeding Amanda Burton who left at the end of last year.

Firstbrook, who will lead the firm's global operations team including more than 3,000 business services staff, was most recently running her own consultancy, having previously worked at Accenture where she led a 1,000 person strategy practice across Europe, Latin America and Africa. She previously worked as a strategy consultant at management consultancy Monitor.

Her appointment comes as Bas Boris Visser, managing partner of CC's Amsterdam office, takes up a new role as global head of innovation and business change. The position, which he will hold in addition to his local leadership post, will see him focus on shaping the firm's strategy around changes in the legal market, including technological developments and new market entrants.

Both Visser and Firstbrook will sit on the recently formed executive operations group chaired by Layton, which will oversee the operations side of the business.

The appointments come as Layton this week announced details of the firm's new strategic vision to staff. The plan is intended to align CC with changes in client demands in the face of macro-economic trends such as shifting demographics and markets, increased regulation and risk, technological developments, new service models and continued pressure on external legal budgets.

The vision sees the firm set out to be "the global law firm of choice for the world's leading businesses of today and tomorrow".

In addition to building its existing presence in key financial centres across Europe, the US and Asia Pacific, the firm will invest in growing its presence in Africa and Latin America though it has no specific office openings planned at present.

Key to the new strategy will be investment in technology and more flexible ways of working, possibly through tie-ups with external providers such as outsourcers. The firm will also review its transactional support centre, currently based in India, with all options open for consideration – including an additional support office in a different location.

The firm will also invest further in its continuous improvement initiative which has so far improved efficiency across more than 100 different projects. As part of this CC has already started talking to clients about extending the offering into their businesses.

Other areas potentially up for change include the firm's lockstep remuneration model, witih the firm set to look at flexibility within the system, as well as more generally looking at monitoring lawyer performance in line with the new strategy.

The firm's existing sector focus will remain unchanged, while clients will continue to fall into three key groups: financial investors, corporates and banks.

Layton and other members of the executive operations group – put together in October- are now presenting the plan to staff globally, while regional and practice group leaders will start detailed planning and implementation.

Commenting on the plans Layton said: "We're operating in a hugely dynamic market which will continue to see rapid developments over the next decade and beyond. Our goal is to be the global law firm of choice for the leading businesses of today and tomorrow. This vision is a 10-year vision and will stand the test of time."