Hogan Lovells has shaken up its global leadership team by creating two new managing partner roles for growth and industry sectors.

New York-based litigation partner Phoebe Wilkinson has been named global managing partner for growth, which will focus on growing the firm’s strategic client relationships, while Munich-based commercial and regulatory partner Patrick Ayad has been named global managing partner for sectors. 

The two new roles divide the responsibilities previously handled by Ina Brock, who is stepping down after six years as managing partner for clients and industries to focus on her disputes practice.

Miguel Zaldivar, the firm’s CEO, said: “Creating these two new roles that Phoebe and Patrick have been appointed to clearly indicates a significant juncture in our clients and industries programme at Hogan Lovells. This is testament to the outstanding leadership and commitment that Ina has demonstrated in her role in the last six years.”

Wilkinson has been a partner with the firm for almost a decade, joining in 2013 from legacy firm Chadbourne & Parke, where she worked for the best part of 20 years. She has already held a number of leadership positions, including head of Hogan Lovells’ New York litigation practice, co-lead of its electronics and consumer applications industry sector and a member of its global litigation, arbitration and employment leadership team. 

In her new role, she will replace Brock on the firm’s international management committee, the firm's key decision making body, which also comprises its three regional heads and its three practice group heads, as well as Zaldivar and his deputy, Michael Davison.

Hogan Lovells' organisational structure was streamlined in 2020 by Zaldivar in a bid to speed up decision making, ten years after the merger between US firm Hogan & Hartson and London’s Lovells that created the firm.

Ayad, meantime, has been with the firm for more than two decades, joining in 2000 from Ludwig Maximilians university in Munich where he was a research assistant. He is a partner in the firm’s global regulatory practice group and leads the mobility and transportation sector group and the firm’s strategic operations, agreements and regulation practice. 

Wilkinson said: “Patrick’s breadth of experience advising global companies on commercial and regulatory matters, and his leadership of our mobility and transportation sector, positions him perfectly to propel our client and industry sector programmes forward.”