Employment History
January 2006 – current: Editor, elexica, Simmons & Simmons, London
Reporting into the Director of Professional Support, I am managing editor of elexica, Simmons & Simmons’ award-winning, free online legal resource, primarily aimed at clients and contacts of the firm. Simmons & Simmons is a leading international law firm with over 1,900 people and 20 offices located in major business and financial centres throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia. My role includes legal/editorial, technical, marketing and strategic elements.
I am responsible for:
– Editing and encouraging submissions from practice areas and sector groupsacross the firm’s international network of offices
– Working with professional support lawyers and marketing teams to design, implement and analyse use of client-focused resources on elexica
– Calling and chairing Editorial Board meetings
– Promotion of elexica within and outside the firm
– Analysis and circulation of usage statistics
– Supervising the elexica administrator
– Managing the addition, updating and removal of material on the website and the contribution of elexica material to other online sources, including the BLT portal and clients’ own sites
– Liasing with key clients on the firm’s know how provision
– In conjunction with the Director of Professional Support, contributing towards the strategy and development of the website, evaluating and implementing new features. My major achievement in 2006 was managing internal and external teams in the delivery of the project to integrate the provision of online legal resources via www.elexica.com and www.simmons-simmons.com
July 2005 – March 2006: Training Officer, Simmons & Simmons, London
One of two training officers reporting to the International Training Manager in the Human Resources Training & Development team at Simmons & Simmons. Key elements of the role were to provide administrative and organisational support to the International Training Manager and to assist in development of the area.
– Working with Graduate Recruitment team, IT web Development and external copywriting team to produce the training and development sections of the Trainee Lawyer area of the firm’s website, reflecting the various routes to qualification that exist across the firm’s network of offices in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America
– Working with the Paris office to produce a business skills programme for delivery in Paris, starting with an initial exercise to identify appropriate courses and coaching, and developing on to produce a budget for a two-year programme and a system to capture and record course attendance for compliance reporting purposes
– Producing the team’s monthly Training & Development email newsletter, highlighting courses for the coming month
– Re-developing the Training & Development intranet site, including the production of a comprehensive listing of the business skills courses available, viewable by skills area and/or role. The details for each course included the course outline, target audience, feedback, tutor and duration
– Creating and delivering new courses on Communicating with graphics and Project Management
– Developing and running courses with external tutors
February – July 2005: Project Manager, Norton Rose, London
One of team of 8 Project Managers in the IT department at Norton Rose, a leading international law firm with a network of offices in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Working with the firm’s international IT teams and legal and support departments to deliver projects firm wide, my particular focus was on knowledge management projects:
– Content Management System (2005)
On joining I took over this project to identify and implement a content management system to enable the firm to manage its intranet, extranets and internet websites more efficiently and effectively. Working from the initial recommendations made by external consultants, I worked with an analyst programmer to define the business’ requirements and ran the Request For Proposal (RFP) and agenda-based demonstration evaluation process to identify a preferred product and supplier
– Knowledge Management Cascade (2005)
Working with the Professional Resources Group and a contract business analyst to identify business requirements for automated delivery of know how into the lawyers’ PC-based working environment
June 2001 – January 2005: Business Analyst & Project Manager, Simmons & Simmons, London
One of team of five Analysts and Project Managers with Simmons & Simmons, a leading international law firm employing more than 1800 staff worldwide, reporting to the IT Systems Manager
– Working with cross functional groups across all business support and legal departments to identify and analyse opportunities for establishing new or improved approaches (operational and/or technological) to deliver practical business benefits in terms of time, cost and quality
– Writing business cases for proposed projects for presentation to relevant approval bodies, including the IT Committee, the Risk Management Committee, the Executive Board
– Producing full project lifecycle documentation in line with the IT department project management methodology, including project plans, issues, risks and changes registers, progress reports, Business requirements and Technical specifications, together with User guides, Operational procedures and guidelines, training materials and marketing communications
– Working with business units to implement recommendations and to monitor results
Special responsibilities included:
– Managing the analysis requests approvals process
– Representing the Business Analysis and Project Management team around the firm e.g. at IT Sponsors meetings, Professional Support meetings, departmental meetings
– Working with the Head of Professional Support to put together and implement the IT for know how programme
– DSDM champion, introducing and promoting the use of the DSDM rapid prototyping methodology in web development projects
Major analysis and projects included:
– Portal to the firm’s new Business Management Solution (2004/5)
– Intranet-based know how contribution form (2004)
– Intranet and Know How database access in the Portuguese offices (2004)
– Trusts and Wills database (2003/4)
– Takeover Code Resources website (2003/4)
– Document management and storage (2003)
– Email management and storage (2003)
– Scanning facilities for London (2003)
– Carpe Diem Narrative (2002)
– Alumni website (2002)
– CD Bibles (2001/2002)
– Pitch to Matter tracking (2001)
August 2000 – May 2001: Community Development Manager, VerticalNet Europe, London
Sole responsibility for community resources on US B2B pioneer VerticalNet Inc‘s industry specific websites in Europe from pre-launch period onwards.
– Devised and implemented content gathering, production and QA processes for the directory and events listings, download library and newsletter for each industry-specific website / community
– Community development (loyalty and retention planning, community products and email policies) and revenue opportunities devised in conjunction with Audience Development, Marketing, Sales and Editorial teams
– Responsible for weekly internal newsletter, social diary and team building events during the company’s rapid growth from 10 (August 2000) to 50 (March 2001)
October 1999 – June 2000: General Manager/Knowledge Manager, eSouk.com, London
Employee number 4 at eSouk.com, a London-based internet incubator with a $15m investment fund and 25 staff.
– Devised, implemented and managed processes to capture, retrieve and share knowledge, documents and knowledge resources brought to and generated in the eSouk incubation model
– Established early stage office management procedures and project managed the office move with minimal post-move downtime and problems
– Acquired extensive internet experience in a rapidly developing business environment, including online research into companies and products and setting up offline communities for online professionals
March 1995 – July 1997: Trainee/Qualified Solicitor, Simmons & Simmons, London & Paris
Trained and qualified as a solicitor with Simmons & Simmons.
– Qualified as a solicitor specialising in corporate tax, having gained practical experience in the Corporate, Tax and Intellectual Property departments of the London office and in the firm’s Paris office
– Research and analysis for a broad range of commercial transactions in national and international arenas
– Provision of top quality transaction support and translation services
Business and IT Skills and Qualifications
Business courses / qualifications:
– Managing the impact of change (Harty Roberts / Simmons & Simmons)
– Project Management (Open University)
– ISEB Certificate in IS Project Management
– Business Process Management (IRM UK / The Process Renewal Consulting Group Inc.)
– Advanced Presentations III (Black Isle / Simmons & Simmons)
– Advanced French (Language Solutions / Simmons & Simmons)
IT training:
– ASP Introduction (Media Training, 2005)
– HTML for beginners (CityLit, 2005)
– Advanced web design (HTML) and hosting (CityLit, 2005)
– Learn to write Javascript (CityLit, 2005)
– Project 2000 – Basic and Advanced User course (Computacenter / Simmons & Simmons)
– Advanced Excel (Simmons & Simmons)
– Visio (Simmons & Simmons)
– Adobe Acrobat and making the most of PDFs (Simmons & Simmons)
– Intranet page management in Coldfusion (Simmons & Simmons)
– User Interface Design and Development (Open University)
PC and Mac applications including:
– Microsoft Outlook and Novell GroupWise (email)
– Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint)
– Microsoft Project
– Microsoft Visio
– Mindjet Mindmanager
– Adobe Acrobat
– Opentext Livelink (Document management and extranets)
– Interwoven iManage (Document management)
– Dreamweaver (website content creation)
Adult education courses:
– Ways into anthropology (CityLit, 2005)
– Iraq and Iran: the cradle of civilisation (CityLit, 2006)
Education
Sept. 1992 – July 1994: Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Studies, The College of Law, Chester
Sept. 1988 – June 1992: Joint Honours degree (First Class) in Mathematics and Mediaeval History, The University of St Andrews, Scotland
Sept. 1986 – June 1988: A-levels: Mathematics (A), Physics (B), History (C), Further Maths (D) University of York: Certificate in French
Sept. 1981 – June 1986: O, A/O -levels (8A, 1B, 2C) including English, Maths and French
Notable Personal Achievements
– The Duncan Medal for Mathematics, University of St Andrews
– Gather, a monthly event for women who work in Internet, broadband and wireless related jobs in which I was active from conception until late-2001
– From September 1997 to June 1999 I travelled round the world
References
Available on request
Contact Details
Available on request – email me and I’ll get back to you