Iona Fairhurst — Senior Legal Counsel, Commercial & Regulatory
Manchester
Commercial solicitor with thirteen years in practice, eight of them in-house in energy and retail. Rewrote a supplier contracting programme that took average time to signature from 34 days to 9 and removed £1.1M of unmanaged indemnity exposure.
Experience
Senior Legal Counsel, Commercial & Regulatory, Brightmoor Energy · September 2022 – present
Senior lawyer for the commercial function, reporting to the General Counsel and supervising one paralegal.
- Rewrote supplier contracting around a three-tier playbook, taking average time to signature from 34 days to 9 across the 240 contracts signed each year.
- Advised on the licence conditions for a flexible-tariff product and cleared launch four weeks ahead of the commercial deadline.
- Reduced external counsel spend by £280k a year by bringing data protection and routine procurement work in-house and re-tendering the panel.
- Leads UK GDPR compliance, including a records-of-processing rebuild that closed all 17 findings from the previous audit.
Consultant Solicitor (part-time), Fernhill Legal Consulting · November 2021 – August 2022
Three days a week, returning to practice after a planned career break.
- Renegotiated 68 reseller agreements onto post-Brexit customs and origin terms for a logistics client, finishing the remediation in five months.
- Drafted the data-sharing agreements for a healthcare analytics pilot, accepted by the client’s information governance panel without amendment.
Planned career break, Career break · February 2021 – October 2021
Nine months away from practice for full-time family care. Practising certificate kept current and the CIPP/E completed during the period.
Legal Counsel, Velbury Retail Group · May 2017 – January 2021
- Ran the legal workstream on the acquisition of a 19-store regional chain, completing diligence in six weeks against an eight-week timetable.
- Replaced 26 bespoke concession agreements with one negotiable schedule used across 340 stores.
- Answered 11 consumer-law complaints referred by Trading Standards and closed every one without formal enforcement action.
Associate, Commercial, Kettering Mayne LLP · September 2013 – April 2017
- Advised retail and manufacturing clients on outsourcing and supply agreements worth £6M to £40M, recording 1,650 chargeable hours a year.
- Qualified into the commercial team in 2015 after a training contract covering corporate, disputes and employment seats.
Education
- LPC Legal Practice Course · BPP University Law School · September 2012 – June 2013
- LLB Law · University of Nottingham · September 2009 – June 2012
Skills
- Commercial: Supply and outsourcing, Reseller agreements, Procurement, Licensing, Contract playbooks
- Regulatory: UK GDPR, Energy licence conditions, Consumer protection, Competition compliance, Modern slavery reporting
- Working with the business: Panel management, Legal budgeting, Risk escalation, Training delivery, Board reporting
Certifications
- Admitted as a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales — Solicitors Regulation Authority
- Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe (CIPP/E) — IAPP