The In-house Transfer Window - GC moves at Parkinsons UK, Aviva and SoftBank
Long-serving Allen & Overy partner joins Parkinson's UK as first general counsel
December 04, 2017 at 07:23 AM
4 minute read
Parkinson's UK has appointed former Allen & Overy (A&O) partner Colleen Keck as its first general counsel and company secretary.
Keck, who spent more than 25 years at A&O before leaving the magic circle firm in 2014, will oversee a three-person legal team including an assistant company secretary and two governance coordinators.
She will focus mainly on corporate transactional and commercial matters, including intellectual property, data protection and charity law, and will report to CEO Steve Ford, chair Mark Goodridge and 10 other members of the board of trustees.
SoftBank Investment Advisers – the Japanese telecoms giant's technology investment arm – has appointed White & Case senior corporate lawyer Spencer Collins as director and legal London lead on domestic and international M&A and investment transactions for the SoftBank Vision Fund.
While at White & Case, Collins was seconded to the fund for six months as senior legal counsel before taking on a permanent role. The position he is taking up is newly created.
Collins said: "What is unique about this in-house role is it is pure M&A, and that is what I really enjoy. Couple that with the largest tech fund in the world and the ambitions of SoftBank in the tech space and you have a very interesting opportunity. It brings all of my skills, experience and interests into one role. SoftBank is a really exciting place to be and I am just really looking forward to continuing my career here."
While working at SoftBank, Collins has taken the lead on numerous multibillion-dollar deals, including the $1.1bn (£810m) equity investment led by SoftBank Vision Fund into Rovivant Sciences.
Previously, Collins trained and practised as a corporate M&A lawyer at A&O, and also spent time on secondment to US firm Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley. He specialises in technology M&A.
Aviva has appointed Bupa's UK legal director Alison Gammon as general counsel for UK insurance.
Gammon takes over from Monica Risam and Tim Vickers, who have both recently left Aviva. Risam was the general counsel for the company's UK life assurance business, while Vickers led the general insurance legal team.
Aviva has recently brought together its UK life assurance and UK general insurance businesses, and Gammon will head the combined UK insurance legal team.
Aviva group GC Kirsty Cooper said: "Alison is a very experienced general counsel and she is a great addition to the team."
While at Bupa, Gammon led its market unit legal team of more than 30 lawyers, advising on all legal and regulatory aspects of Bupa's insurance, health and care provision businesses. She was also a member of the UK executive team and Bupa's senior leadership team.
Before joining Bupa, Gammon was international legal director at Legal & General and was a senior associate in A&O's financial institutions corporate team.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has appointed data privacy law head Suzanne Rodway as the legal team's first COO.
Rodway, who will retain her data privacy role alongside her COO responsibilities, has been with the bank since 2012. She also supports RBS GC Michael Shaw with the bank's General Data Protection Regulation programme.
She previously was a privacy and communications lawyer at Linklaters and then moved in-house to Barclays in 2006, before later taking up a role as chief privacy officer for NBC Universal.
Prior to Rodway taking on the role full time, the COO responsibilities were handled by one of RBS's existing general counsels.
In the US, Legal Week sister title Corporate Counsel has reported that Amy Tu, chief counsel for global law affairs at Boeing, is moving over to head up the legal department at Tyson Foods.
Tu is joining the US food company as executive vice-president and general counsel, replacing David Van Bebber, a Tyson veteran who joined the company in 1986 and became GC in 2008. Van Bebber will stay with the company until May next year to oversee the transition.
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