The Lawyer reports that general counsel Edward Smith has capitalised on the departure of Jillian Phillips and Mark Simpson by promoting internally and changing the structure of the legal department.
Mr Smith said that following a internal and external search for suitable candidates for the new roles, he discovered the best option would be to promote internally to ‘make best use of the talent we’ve got’.

New business

Kent Dreadon now has overall responsibility for teams including IP, employment and litigation and new business - but is not directly responsible for any of them - while competition lawyer Bella Hinton has become the new head of competition.
Julia Boyle has also moved from heading up the IP team to looking after the marketing and consumer team, with IP lawyer Melissa Hall promoted to take over Ms Boyle’s previous role.
Tony Fleat has assumed responsibility for both employment and litigation in a newly-combined team.