Director of strategy at Linklaters resigns post

Linklaters director of strategy Giles Pugh has left, marking an end to the firm’s alliance past.

Pugh, formerly with management consultants Booz Allen Hamilton, was a member of Linklaters’ merger taskforce, which put together the firm’s tie-ups with Germany’s Oppenhoff & Rädler, Sweden’s Lagerlof & Leman and Begium’s De Brandt Van Hecke Lagae & Loesch.

Pugh, who sources say was paid around £250,000 a year, will return to consulting and will be replaced by Martin Lewis, chief operating officer of Linklaters’ corporate division. Lewis will take the title of director of strategy and business management.

During his time at the firm, Pugh was also instrumental in putting together a report on the firm’s US strategy, detailing a list of potential merger partners.

However, since then Linklaters, under the direction of managing partner Tony Angel, has opted for an organic approach to US growth, making laterals in both litigation and restructuring from the New York offices of Shearman & Sterling and Latham & Watkins respectively.

A spokesperson at Linklaters said: “[Pugh] has been with the firm for the last six years and has played a major role in developing the firm’s strategy in that time. We wish him success.”