Our Team

I started my career with an anorak as a software engineer, so when I shifted to law, I was always going to leverage off my passion for technology and innovation.

It was a real career highlight to support the Currency Cloud from Series A financing in 2011 through 10 years of legal services including four further funding rounds and ultimately its £700m sale to VISA. The connection to the exceptional Currency Cloud team was the cherry on top.

I am Zimbabwean born and bred, and qualified to represent my country in table tennis at the junior Olympics.

Family, friends, good food, good music and a game of padel (which I win).

To clone myself: I would love to be able to dedicate an extra bit of time to each of the activities taking up my day - there never seems enough time to do each one fully.

It's fantastic to work with tech companies who are launching products that will disrupt the market. Working with them to best navigate complex regulation and applying old law to new concepts is very rewarding.

A football referee. I used to do a lot of refereeing when I was younger (given I was so more at actually playing football). I still do it from time-to-time and learn new insults every time!

You can often find me watching some kind of sport. In particular, I love cricket, horse racing and football. I am a long suffering Gillingham FC fan and my ideal weekend would be watching them win the FA Cup (maybe next year!).

I love the optimism and collaboration that is (more often than not) a characteristic of emerging companies/venture capital work. Legal negotiations tend to be less of a zero-sum game and more of a case of "how can we set this company up to be as successful as possible for the future?". I find that dynamic incredibly energising.

Assuming that talent is not a barrier, trying to scratch a living as a sportsman of some (any!) kind - but in my dreams it would involve playing on Centre Court at Wimbledon!

I spent two months sleeping in a (very cold) tent in the Himalayas before starting law school.

The best motto for a long march is "Don't grumble. Plug on." (A quotation from Sir Frederick Treves which I use indiscriminately in many different scenarios, much to my kids' annoyance.)

I love working with entrepreneurs who are often the smartest people in the world in their subspecialty, and guiding them through legal and business issues that are often totally new and unfamiliar to them.

I'd work in renewable energy - maybe a solar or wind company - making a difference in the effort to battle climate change.

I'm the author of Trees of San Francisco, now in its 2nd edition. The book introduces the reader to what's interesting about the trees that you'd encounter if you walked down a typical street in the Bay Area.

Nuclear fusion - if we can make that work on a commercial scale, it would go a long way towards solving the climate crisis.

Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan. The book flips the humans vs. plant worldview, showing how some plants actually manipulate homo sapiens - advancing their agenda by ensuring they are attractive to human beings.