Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top London based Director operating in the Legal space. If you think a Director is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Saviz Izadpanah
CTO / Director of HighQ
Saviz joined HighQ in 2005 as CTO, responsible for leading HighQ technology strategy, product management and product development. Prior to HighQ, Saviz was the global head of Debt Capital Markets IT at Deutsche Bank where he was responsible for the program management of multiple applications including Deutsche Bank’s online debt order capture system “dbbonds” for the global DCM sales teams. Prior to Deutsche Bank, Saviz was part of the lead web development team at Barclays Capital. Saviz holds a Bachelors of Engineering in Computer Science and Technology from Imperial College of London.
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About HighQ: HighQ empowers leading law firms and corporate legal teams to transform the way they work and deliver legal services.
Bridget Deiters
Managing Director of Ontra
Bridget is a Managing Director at InCloudCounsel. Prior to InCloudCounsel, Bridget practiced corporate and capital markets law at Kirkland & Ellis and Cravath. Bridget holds a J.D. from Georgetown and a B.A. from Yale. In her spare time, Bridget enjoys cooking, arts and crafts, and country walks with her dog.
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About Ontra: Ontra is a provider of technology and services for contract automation and intelligence.
Ben Hargreaves
Director – Head of Government & Public Sector UK & Nordics of Bureau van Dijk
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About Bureau van Dijk: Provide company information solutions that can make you more efficient.
Christian Fleck
Managing Director, UK/Ireland & Pacific of LexisNexis
Mr. Fleck heads LexisNexis’ largest country operation outside the U.S., covering three principal lines of business: legal and tax information solutions and enterprise software. Leveraging nearly two centuries of expertise since the inception of the organization in 1818, Mr. Fleck manages the expansion from market leading information offerings to award winning workflow solutions for legal & tax professionals. Mr. Fleck joined our organization in 2002 in the Global Strategy & Business Development team in our New York head office. Prior to his current role, Mr. Fleck led LexisNexis Germany and Central Europe, with sizeable operations in Germany, Austria and Poland. He also served in Latin America as General Manager of the LexisNexis Mexico business, leading online migration and adjacent market expansion. Before joining LexisNexis, Mr. Fleck was a strategic management consultant with Monitor Group in Munich, Germany and Los Angeles advising clients in the TMT sectors and beyond. He started out his career in banking at Warburg Bank in Germany. Mr. Fleck earned graduate degrees in Germany and the U.S., including an MSc from Handelshochschule Leipzig, a leading German business school, and an MBA from Tulane University.
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About LexisNexis: LexisNexis offers content-enabled workflow solutions in the legal, risk management, corporate, government, accounting, and academic markets.
Patrick Simpson
Managing Director, Renewals of CPA Global
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About CPA Global: CPA Global provides intellectual property services.
Ciaran O’Callaghan
Director of Sales, EMEA of Brightflag
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About Brightflag: Brightflag is the AI-powered legal spend management and matter management platform for corporate legal teams.
Sam Callaghan
Director International Sales of ConnectWise
Sam has worked at ConnectWise since 2014, which was the start of our focused international expansion. Prior, he worked with a number of US based technology businesses, helping them expand their communities and reach across EMEA. While at ConnectWise, Sam has acted as both an individual contributor and helped in training, managing, and supporting the fast-growing sales teams.
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About ConnectWise: ConnectWise is a software company that transforms how technology solution providers build, manage, and grow their businesses.
Simon O’Meara
Director & Consultant Solicitor of Oakmere Law
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About Find a Lawyer UK, Oakmere Law: Oakmere Law provides legal consultancy services and specialists.
Barry Roche
Managing Director of Rosenblatt
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About Rosenblatt: Rosenblatt is a professional legal services provider firm.
Graham Bell
Global Business Transformation Project Director of Dentons
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About Dentons: Dentons is a global law firm driven to provide you with the competitive edge in an increasingly complex
Matthew Hinkley
Director UK of KoreConX
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About KoreConX: Empowering Private Markets
Matthew Hinkley
Director UK of KoreConX
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About KoreConX: Empowering Private Markets
Ashkan Jabbari
Director of Konsolute Ltd
Ashkan Jabbari is the co-founder and director at Konsolute.
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About Konsolute Ltd: Microsoft Gold Partner headquartered in London offering professional services and products for the Microsoft Cloud
Anthony Frizelle
Managing Director of Resource Management & Finance Company
Frizelle was the Founder and Managing Director of Merchant Banks, Resource Management & Finance Company Ltd. and RMF (UK) Ltd. Following a 20 year career spanning key management positions including the major international mining group Anglo American and Managing Director of Trade and Structured Finance at Philipp Brothers Inc./Salomon Inc. Frizelle founded, listed and promoted 11 junior mining companies including Mutual Resources, Golden Knight Resources, Jubilee Platinum plc, Nu Energy Corporation and Pan African Resources. In the process, these companies and their successors raised in excess of $750 million dollars of capital and lucrative exit strategies were implemented for early stage investors.
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About : A London based advisory company which assists a group of specialist companies that actively develop.
Audrey Mandela
Founder & Director of Mandela Associates
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About Mandela Associates: Mandela Associates was founded in 1999 providing management consulting services.
Livio Hughes
Co-Founder & Director of Postshift
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About Postshift: Postshift is a digital transformation consultancy that helps organisations become 21st Century businesses
Nathan Hayes
IT Director of Osborne Clarke
Nathan has almost 20 years’ experience in the delivery, sourcing, strategic development and transformation of IT in the Legal Sector, and uses his expertise to make regular contributions at conferences and to a range of legal publications. His latest challenge is to balance the need to service Osborne Clarke’s ambitious growth across Europe and Asia whilst developing and adhering to the firm’s global IT strategy and meeting its people’s high expectation of service. One area of particular interest to Nathan is how technology can facilitate business transformation in terms of the delivery of legal services.
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About Osborne Clarke: Osborne Clarke is an international legal practice with over 270 Partners and more than 850 talented lawyers in 26 locations
Keith Breed
Research Director of Tariff Consultancy
Keith Breed is a Research Director with Tariff Consultancy Ltd (www.telecomspricing.com) and has been responsible for the publication of a series of pricing reports and pricing research studies into roaming, emerging markets mobile, business models, smart phones, and Mobile Broadband for the company. His main areas of expertise are the mobile operator space and the Data Centre & collocation segments. With TCL Keith Breed is also responsible for producing regular subscription based reports including the 14 Country Data Centre Price Tracker and has presented at numerous conferences in Europe & North America. He has previously written several articles on IT outsourcing and Ethernet deployments for Total Telecom Magazine as a Contributing Editor, and has provided research on a freelance capacity for Gartner on mobile and fixed line country markets throughout Europe. Keith Breed has also presented at a number of external conferences on telecoms subjects as diverse as Data Roaming, Mobile TV, CRM & customer loyalty and Mobile Broadband. From 2000 to 2005 Keith Breed has previously been responsible for sales and marketing in the European Head-quarters of Japanese carrier NTT Com – which included managing corporate Japanese and European sales & wholesale sales, bid management and marketing. From 1994 he was a General Manager Sales with the UK office of Japanese carrier KDDI Europe. He joined KDDI from Mercury Communications (part of Cable & Wireless) where he had been a Product Manager responsible for International Private Circuits. In 1989, after finishing his MBA, Keith Breed started work as a Market Analyst Manager in BT UK’s Marketing Strategy Unit. He has an MBA specialising in Marketing Management from Bradford University, and his original degree is in Modern History with Economics from Manchester University.
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About Tariff Consultancy: Tariff Consultancy Ltd is a London UK based pricing and tariff services research company.
Margrit Sessions
Managing Director of Tariff Consultancy
Margrit Sessions is one of the world’s leading specialists in pricing, tariffing and billing analysis. Prior to establishing Tariff Consultancy Ltd in 2006 (www.telecomspricing.com), she headed global tariff consultancy TARIFICA for 17 years. She has also held the position of Tariff Expert for the European Commission and and has been involved in a number of pricing projects, the latest one looking at data roaming across 180 operators. She is a regular speaker at international conferences, Ms Sessions also authors reports and papers covering tariffing issues.
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About Tariff Consultancy: Tariff Consultancy Ltd is a London UK based pricing and tariff services research company.
Richard Millington
Founder & Managing Director of FeverBee
Richard Millington has spent the past decade helping 250+ companies develop some of the world’s largest online communities. Richard is the founder of FeverBee, an international community consultancy, and the author of Buzzing Communities. Richard’s clients have included Google, Facebook, Oracle, Wikipedia, EMC, Greenpeace, and many more. Prior to FeverBee, Richard interned with Seth Godin in New York.
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About FeverBee: FeverBee provides consultancy, training, and technology to help you build your community.
Jenai Nissim
Director and co-founder of Hellodpo
Jenai Nissim is a director at HelloDPO, a specialist data protection law firm providing outsourced DPO services and data protection advice. She was previously a legal director for data protection and privacy at a leading London law firm and has over 12 years’ data protection experience working in-house and in private practice. Jenai is a member of the IAPP and holds the CIPP/E and CIPM certification. She also holds the PDP Practitioner Certificate in Data Protection. Jenai is a published author and data protection trainer.
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About Hellodpo: Hellodpo is an innovative data protection law firm offering a range of advisory services for Data Protection Officers
Mike Owen
Cyber Consulting Director of Mishcon de Reya
Mike is a Cyber Consulting Director at Mishcon de Reya, leading the firm’s consulting focused services. He has an extensive range of experience in cyber security including cyber security governance and risk management, cyber strategy and technical architecture. Mike often is called upon to lead compliance implementation and management programmes, including ISO27001 and PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standard) projects. He has experience across a wide range of sectors and organisations of all sizes, and has been most recently focused on the Fintech, Energy, and Transportation sectors. Mike has previously held a range of internal and consulting roles, having started his career with a small software house that became a leading security software provider. Combining the experience of both in house and consulting, Mike is able to provide a range of cyber consulting services while truly understanding the pressures on in-house teams.
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About Mishcon de Reya: Mishcon de Reya services an international community of clients.
Mike Owen
Cyber Consulting Director of Mishcon de Reya
Mike is a Cyber Consulting Director at Mishcon de Reya, leading the firm’s consulting focused services. He has an extensive range of experience in cyber security including cyber security governance and risk management, cyber strategy and technical architecture. Mike often is called upon to lead compliance implementation and management programmes, including ISO27001 and PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standard) projects. He has experience across a wide range of sectors and organisations of all sizes, and has been most recently focused on the Fintech, Energy, and Transportation sectors. Mike has previously held a range of internal and consulting roles, having started his career with a small software house that became a leading security software provider. Combining the experience of both in house and consulting, Mike is able to provide a range of cyber consulting services while truly understanding the pressures on in-house teams.
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About Mishcon de Reya: Mishcon de Reya services an international community of clients.
Eliot Benzecrit
Director of avvoka
Eliot Benzecrit is a director at Avokka.
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About avvoka, SportsFix: Avvoka enables businesses to automatically generate, track, e-sign, and store their standard-form legal contracts online.
David Howorth
Director of avvoka
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About : Avvoka enables businesses to automatically generate, track, e-sign, and store their standard-form legal contracts online.
Vicky Banks
Legal Director of DAC Beachcroft
Vicky Banks specialises in commercial real estate work. Her expertise includes advising on investment, management and development matters where she has acted for investor landlords, pension funds, small commercial landlords, developers and occupiers. This has included acting on disposals, acquisitions and management matters of investment portfolios and individual sites (including retail and industrial sites, shopping centres, office buildings in the City and throughout the UK, leisure facilities and mixed use sites) and also advising occupiers on lettings. Vicky’s work has included the negotiation of sale/purchase and development agreements, assisting in the purchase of and dealing with occupational lettings of large regional shopping centres, dealing with the sale/purchase and occupational lettings of retail and industrial units and dealing with the purchase, redevelopment, subsequent management and subsequent sale of large City offices and City office developments. Vicky has written articles on property matters published in external publications and newsletters and has previously contributed to the Law Society’s Conveyancing Handbook.
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About DAC Beachcroft: DAC Beachcroft is an international law firm specialising in insurance, health and real estate.
Kuan Hon
Director, Privacy & Information of Fieldfisher
Technology lawyer with computing science degree and joint law/computer science PhD, specialising in data protection law and also cloud computing/IoT.
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About Fieldfisher: Fieldfisher is a leading full service international law firm.
Ann Gaskell
Consulting Director of Mozaic
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About Mozaic: Mozaic is a provider of IT and integration management services to business clients.
Julie Simmonds
Director, Equity Research of Panmure Gordon
Julie joined Panmure Gordon in November 2015 from Canaccord Genuity. She has 18 years’ experience in Life Sciences research, covering both UK and continental European companies across a wide range of Healthcare subsectors. These include biotechnology, medical devices, diagnostics and healthcare services across both large and small-cap companies. Prior to Canaccord Genuity Julie was a member of the No.1 Extel‑rated healthcare team at Piper Jaffray. Julie started her City career at Beeson Gregory, where she became Head of Lifesciences research. Julie has a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Kent and experience in industry in both Europe and the US. She is also panel member for NIHR i4i (invention for innovation), assessing early stage medical technologies.
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About Panmure Gordon: Panmure Gordon & Co has been connecting businesses with the capital to help them grow.
Serena Manzoli
Managing Director of Wildcat Legal
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About Wildcat Legal: Wildcat is a London-based Digital Marketing Agency.
Douglas McCormick
Group Executive Director of Gleeds USA
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About Gleeds USA: Gleeds USA is a construction company that provides global property and construction consultancy services.
Nathan Gaydhani
Director Of Business Development of PixelMill
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About PixelMill: PixelMill is a digital branding consultancy based in the heart of Northern California.
Lucy Blair
Director at Digital Marketing of Motive Unknown
As director at digital marketing agency Motive Unknown, Lucy specialises in helping music clients including BMG, Sony Red, AIM and Gramofon to identify and implement strategic business and technology opportunities. Prior to joining Motive Unknown in 2014, Lucy spent three and a half years as Digital Marketing Manager at renowned dance music labels Ministry of Sound and Anjunabeats, heading up their digital strategy, campaigns and teams. Lucy is also a regular conference panellist and presenter, and to date has contributed to events including MIDEM, By:Larm, AIM Music Connected and Indie Con and Brighton Music Conference, amongst others.
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About Motive Unknown: A strategic digital marketing consultancy working primarily in the music business
Alastair Brown
Non Executive Director of Icon Solutions
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About Icon Solutions: An independent IT payment consultancy and specialist technology provider serving financial institutions across the globe.
Gary Frost
Managing Director of 51zero
Gary Frost, owner and Managing Director of 51zero has over 20 years in IT and technical development experience. With an exceptional knowledge of financial services and investment banking internationally Gary focuses on within budget delivery of critical projects as well as influencing and creating agile teams that productively work together. Getting to the heart of problems quickly and communicating effectively are mainstays of Gary’s approach.
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About 51zero: Software Development Consultancy
Luke Razzell
Director of Weaver Digital
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About Tixboo, Weaver Digital: Weaver Digital is a provider of branding, marketing, and design services to businesses.
Ivan Toniolli
Director of Expand Research
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About Expand Research: Expand Research is a subsidiary of the Boston Consulting Group, recognized for its leading benchmarking and research capabilities.
