Withers has announced that Ceri Vokes, a private client tax lawyer, is to succeed Margaret Robertson as CEO from 1 July next year.
Robertson, who has led the firm for nearly 25 years, will work alongside Vokes in a transition process until she steps down next summer, having been elected in 2023 to her fifth and final three-year term at the private client firm.
Vokes has been a partner at the firm since 2013, specialising in tax and trust advice for entrepreneurs, founders, private equity and hedge fund principals, as well as large, multi-generational family offices.
She has served as the firm’s training partner and co-head of the EU private client team, joining the firm in 2006 after training and qualifying at Magic Circle law firm Linklaters and subsequently moving to Hogan Lovells, initially as a corporate tax lawyer before transitioning to private client work.
Vokes will retain her practice after Robertson departs next year.
“I’m thrilled to have been elected as CEO and am grateful to the firm’s partnership for placing their trust in me,” Vokes said, adding Robertson’s “clear vision has steered the firm with purpose and helped define the firm we are today”.
Vokes said she would work closely with the firm’s management team to deliver on its strategic priorities, as well as “harness our entrepreneurialism and realise our full potential”.
Under Robertson’s leadership Withers has grown from 90 partners in 2000 to more than 200 partners and 650 other lawyers, serving a broad client base that includes multinationals, governments, financial institutions, HNW individuals and their businesses and family offices, as well as fiduciaries.
It has also seen considerable international expansion, including in the US through its merger with Bergman Horowitz & Reynolds in 2002. That was followed by a string of office openings in Milan, Geneva and Padua in Europe, as well as in Hong Kong in 2008 and in Tokyo in 2015.
At the same time, the firm built on the merger of Withers Bergman, as it then was, to open in California in 2015, expanding into strategic locations such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, and subsequently into Texas.
In 2019 the firm also merged with its Singapore ally to form Withers KhattarWong, which has grown to become the fourth-largest international law firm in the city-state, and earlier this year announced a non-exclusive association with the Australasian accounting and advisory business Bentleys.
Withers’ increasingly global reach is illustrated by its client base – the firm has advised 78% of the top 100 UK Sunday Times Rich List, 25% of the Forbes 400 List, 54% of the Singapore Forbes Rich List, and 35% of the Hong Kong Forbes Rich List.
Robertson commented: “Congratulations to Ceri: her talents and experience are perfectly suited to meeting the challenges that lie ahead for the firm and harnessing the opportunities to protect and advise our clients.
“With the legal sector in a highly dynamic state driven by technological developments and geopolitical pressures, among other factors, Ceri will equip Withers to manage the required changes and work to our strengths.”
Paul Hewitt, who recently succeeded Justine Markovitz as chair, added: “I look forward to forging a strong working relationship with Ceri and collaborating with all of our leaders and partners around the firm to ensure we continue to operate with the rigour and excellence that have been a hallmark of the firm under Margaret’s tenure.”
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