Business support

How long have you been with Gateley and what is your role?

I joined Gateley LLP in 2008, was appointed as Finance Director in 2011 and became the first non-lawyer to be appointed as Partner within Gateley LLP following its successful application to become an Alternative Business Structure in January 2014. I was made Chief Financial Officer in May 2023.

I was a member of the management team on Gateley LLP’s acquisition of the commercial law business from Halliwells LLP in 2010 and following that, was involved in Gateley Plc’s admission to AIM. Since being appointed to the Plc Board in 2015, I have been involved in all of the subsequent acquisitions that have seen the Group expand beyond legal services into a law-led professional services Group.

What’s your role and how do you help internal clients? 

My role is Financial Controller of the Legal side of the business. The primary focus of the role is to record and deliver financial information to key stakeholders within the business. This includes delivering regular information on employee utilisation, fees and cash collections to unit heads and other members of the finance and management teams. 

What does your day-to-day work consist of?

My day-to-day work is very varied. Much of the month involves supporting fee earners and budget holders within the business, this can be with tracking expenditure against budget, unit performance or dealing with accounts queries relating to billing. Following month end my day to day role is focused more on collecting, processing and presenting the financial information from around the business focusing on fees, cash and debtors to allow us to see and assess the performance of the business including the subsidiaries. This information is then presented to various parts of the business.

Has there been a particular highlight for you whilst with Gateley? 

In my first year at Gateley, I was able to attend the Gateley company party, where the whole of the business came together to celebrate the performance and successes of the business. With a number of offices across the country, a lot of the time I am speaking to people over the phone or via email, being able to meet all the people you have worked with remotely was great and put the size of the business into perspective! 

What’s your role and what does your team do?

As Group HR Director I have overall responsibility for HR, talent acquisition, learning development and Inclusion across the Gateley Group.  

I am an employment lawyer by background and have developed my career within Gateley from a trainee solicitor through to partner and appointment to the national Operations and Strategic Boards of Gateley Plc.  

I have seen the Gateley Group grow over the last 20 years and it has been a great journey to be part of. I am proud to be part of a team creating a culture to ensure that everybody can be themselves at work and to nurture and support our people to reach their ambitions in full. 

I am also passionate about our structure which provides all employees within the Group an opportunity to acquire shares in the company through our share option schemes. We are a team at Gateley and it is important to me that everyone can participate and share in the future financial success of the Group.  

What's your favourite thing about working for Gateley?

Gateley is a fast pace dynamic place to work but is immensely rewarding.  I never have time to be bored and there is always a new challenge around the corner - I guess that is why I have stayed for over 20 years!
 

What’s your role and how do you help internal clients?

As Head of HR, my role is to manage the HR team to deliver an effective service to all our employees and continue to work towards our commitment of being an employer of choice. The role involves providing support as required to all employees throughout their career lifecycle, ensuring we have an environment where people can thrive and working closely with our diversity and inclusion network groups to support inclusion within our company.

What does your day-to-day work consist of?

Day to day I can be involved with coaching a team member, completing project-based work or supporting and advising colleagues as required. I enjoy working closely with my team to ensure we are attracting and retaining the best talent for our business and watching the business grow. Since we floated this has given the HR team a fantastic opportunity to work with a number of different businesses and ensure we are partnering with them to provide the best service possible. I get to work on a variety or projects across the business whether this is reviewing our systems, introducing reward and recognition programmes or ensuring annual processes run effectively.

Has there been a particular highlight for you whilst with Gateley? 

I joined Gateley in 2011 and since then there have been a lot of highlights! I am really lucky that every day I get to work with such a great team who all work extremely hard to ensure we are delivering the best service possible to all our employees. I am proud of what the team has achieved and one highlight that stands out, in particular, was the launch of our annual Gateley Team Spirit Awards. I really enjoy recognising colleagues across the business and celebrating their achievements with them. On a personal level, Gateley has given me the opportunity to develop and grow into the career I have always wanted and really supports people to achieve their ambitions. 

What’s your role and how do you help internal clients?

The work that I do supports our people to become self-aware and learn new skills and behaviours so that they can play to their strengths and be the best that they can be in their role at Gateley. 

What does your day-to-day work consist of?

My role is really varied as I’m also the lead on Gateley Thrive, our employee health & wellbeing network. I design and deliver training sessions and collaborate with a variety of external training consultants to deliver an engaging, interactive and practical skills based workshops as part of our career development programme. I work one to one with  teams or individuals to coach them on areas that might be of particular challenge or importance. I work closely with the wider HR team to deliver projects that will help to engage and retain our talent and further our commitment to be the employer of choice. I deliver a programme of mental health training and also help to organise various events and initiatives as part of our health and wellbeing offering. 

Has there been a particular highlight for you whilst with Gateley? 

I genuinely love working for Gateley. I originally worked for the company as a senior associate in the banking team, but even when I knew that it was time for a change in career direction, I was keen to stay with Gateley as the people and the culture really are great. There’s been lots of highlights but for me, the real highlights are when someone I’ve worked with on some training or coaching takes the time to contact me to say that it’s made a real difference to the way they feel about their work, a particular issue or how they are performing. That feels great. 

What’s your role and what does your team do?

The team roles fall into three broad categories:

• The IT Service team is responsible for the day-to-day management of our IT systems, ensuring that all our IT services run smoothly, systems are kept up-to-date and that we help people across Gateley with questions and special requests in a pro-active and efficient manner.
• The Solution Delivery Team is responsible  for defining and delivering transformational change across Gateley and IT system / processes improvements, as well as developing client-specific solutions, and managing integrations between systems.  
• We also have people dedicated to the technical aspects of Information Security and looking forwards to define the future of our IT Infrastructure.

My own role is to lead, encourage and develop the above teams.  I also represent IT at Board level and help the business leaders understand the art-of-the-possible and work with them to.

Why is the work of your team important for Gateley?

Clients increasingly expect innovative technology-based solutions and demand evidence of our Information Security protection measures. The growth and evolution of our business is dependent upon us implement change programmes, such as a new practice management solution, enhancements to document management systems, integrating acquisitions and following information security best practice.

What’s your favourite thing about working for Gateley?

Gateley is a great place to work! The IT team is friendly, enthusiastic and supportive of each other.  We work well together and with the wider Gateley business.  Gateley, as a people-centric organisation, focuses an unusually large amount of time and care in developing our people.

What’s your role and how do you help internal clients?

As the Head of IT Service, along with the team I am responsible for ensuring that all of our IT services run smoothly, systems are kept up-to-date and that the underpinning IT infrastructure is fit for purpose.

What does your day-to-day work consist of?

Any single day can be extremely varied but roughly divided in to tasks from a few specific areas:  

• Business As Usual – We obviously strive not to have service impacting issues but unfortunately such is the nature of IT that things can go wrong from time to time so how we deal with them and responding effectively to the business is important.
• Projects – Providing support and assistance to the project delivery side of the IT team so that we continue to deliver IT transformation projects aligned to the business strategy.
• Continual Service Improvement – Working with the team to identify and implement better ways of working in order to improve the level of service and satisfaction within our user base.
• Finance/Budget – Reviewing IT expenditure against the IT budget and managing financial outlays and renewals for things such as licensing for our various software and systems.

Has there been a particular highlight for you whilst with Gateley? 

Starting Gateley in the middle of a global pandemic with extremely limited face to face time with colleagues has been challenging at times but the highlight would have to be how easy in the most part it has been to start getting to know the team despite these challenges and appreciating the work that was done prior to my arrival in relation to the technology that has been deployed to make it possible.

What’s your role and how do you help clients?

The primary purpose of my role as Head of Solution Delivery is to manage the successful delivery of all of our IT and Business Change projects to the Gateley business and its clients. In addition, I also support our client tenders, supplier management, information security reviews, audits, and the occasional client meeting.

Due to the size and complexity of change that my team is delivering and the range of the business units and clients we deal with, there is genuine diversity in the projects that we will engage on, which makes it difficult to define a typical day, other than busy.

Has there been a particular highlight for you whilst with Gateley? 

Although we have delivered some truly transformational change, personal highlights have come more as a result of the unplanned activity, for example when reacting to the Covid-19 pandemic and enabling our business and its users to be able to work from home, the way in which our entire IT Team stepped up to take responsibility and the support that they provided each other has reinforced the point that I am part of a truly exceptional team!

What’s your role and what does your team do?

My role is to support Gateley in delivering its strategic growth objectives, maximising the opportunities within the group and delivering a great service to our internal and external clients.

Our marketing team brings expert guidance across all elements of the marketing mix acting as trusted advisers to our internal clients. Whether we are supporting on a pitch opportunity or drafting a press release or presenting content digitally (and much more), the marketing team provides best practice guidance alongside a practical approach. 

Why is the work of your team important for Gateley?

Our marketing team works side-by-side with our legal and consulting colleagues to support work-winning in an effective and proactive way. We support at all stages of the marketing funnel: raising awareness of Gateley, attracting interest in the services that we are offering and converting that interest into leads and, subsequently, new clients. Once we have clients on board, we work with our client teams to deliver on the promises that we have made at every stage of the client relationship.

What’s your favourite thing about working for Gateley?

It sounds cliched to say it but Gateley really does what it says on its ‘cultural tin’: people are friendly and genuinely work well together; we are trusted as marketing professionals by our fee-earning colleagues for the expertise we bring to the table; there are exciting opportunities to get involved in; and we’re encouraged to be ourselves.

What’s your role and how do you help internal clients?

I head up a team that leads the group’s public and media relations; our internal communications strategy which engages with and informs our people through a variety of channels and internal events; safeguarding our brand reputation within the press and social media; supporting with crisis and issues management and our investor communications and financial PR programme.

What does your day-to-day work consist of?

No day is ever the same and working for a diverse business operating across multiple regions and industries means the role is always exciting and varied. I’m lucky to work with some creative and talented colleagues who take a forward thinking approach to developing ideas and working with our internal and external clients to deliver results.

Has there been a particular highlight for you whilst with Gateley? 

The highlight of my time at Gateley was leading the communications around our IPO in 2015, when we became the first UK commercial law firm to float on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market. Months of hard work and meticulous planning in the run up to the float on internal and external communications paid off when the news broke and went global. We spoke to more than 300 journalists that week and being able to raise our profile in such a unique way put us firmly on the map and in a really good place from a communications perspective.   

What’s your role and what does your team do?

I oversee the Risk & Compliance function at Gateley.  Our team leads on areas including anti-money laundering activity, client confidentiality, risk identification and management, supplier compliance, data protection, insurance and complaints and claims.  As you can see quite a variety!  We advise on policy and procedures and support the implementation of these working closely with other teams across the business.

Why is the work of your team important for Gateley?

As providers of professional services, we must behave in such a way that our clients and the public trust us.  Our compliance with the law, regulations, industry guidance and best practice underpins this and is therefore critical.  More specifically for Gateley as a legal and professional services group, effective risk management is a cornerstone of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) Codes of Conduct and the SRA requires us to take a risk-based approach to compliance and managing our business.

What’s your favourite thing about working for Gateley?

Without a second’s hesitation my answer is “the people” – I have been at Gateley for almost 20 years and while we have grown exponentially in that period, we have retained the same spirit – we are a diverse group of hardworking but above all friendly people.