A&O makes room at top of corporate team line-up

Allen & Overy has restructured its London corporate management team to create a role for corporate partner Mark Wippell, who will focus purely on business development for the department.

Head of corporate Richard Cranfield said: “We would look back over the past few years and say we’ve done lots of good things, but it’s a tough market and you’ve got to run faster to do well. It is key to be hungry and entrepreneurial.”

The reshuffle sees Cranfield re-elected unopposed as head of the UK’s corporate department for four years. However, managing partner Susan Howard has stepped down to concentrate on her private equity practice.

Joining Cranfield is Wippell, who will become managing partner, and clients and energy partner Stuart Harray, who gets the managing partner operational job.

Cranfield will focus on his role as global head of corporate and his practice, leaving the client-facing work to Wippell and the administration to Harray.

He said: “We wanted to rebalance the workload between three people.”