A law firm has announced a major restructure which sees the creation of new sector-focused business units aimed at supporting growth plans across its eight UK offices.
Shakespeare Martineau said it was introducing the new set up, which comes into effect today, in order to increase collaboration across the practice and create a more agile operational model.
The new business units will each be led by a managing director working with what the firm is calling 'super team leaders'.
The three business units are life and business led by Victoria Tester, litigation services and dispute resolution led by Mark Beesley and infrastructure and specialist markets led by Alex Smith.
Each business unit encompasses a number of 'super teams,' with 'super team leaders' responsible for the growth of each service area.
In addition, Joanna Deffley, Duncan James and Kavita Patel have been appointed as the firm’s new regional heads for the West Midlands, East Midlands and South respectively.
Sitting on the main board alongside chief executive Sarah Walker-Smith and the business unit managing directors will be newly appointed chief transformational officer Karen Walker and Ben Buckton as chief marketing and people officer.
Ms Walker was previously change and infrastructure director at Browne Jacobson and will oversee operational changes within the new structure.
Mr Buckton was Shakespeare Martineau's marketing director before stepping up to this new role aimed at bringing HR and marketing closer together.
Shakespeare Martineau is headquartered in Birmingham and has offices in Leicester, London, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Sheffield, Solihull and Stratford-upon-Avon.
Ms Walker-Smith said: "We remain focussed on long-term growth and keeping clients at the heart of everything that we do. We recognise the best way to do this is through collaboration and taking a market-led approach to our service areas.
"By uniting teams, rather than segmenting them, we are able to provide a more holistic service to clients. No-one could have predicted the impact of coronavirus on businesses across the globe.
"However, for us it has only compounded the need for increased agility, collaboration and strong, supportive leadership, which our new structure delivers."
Shakespeare Martineau said the new organisational structure had resulted in its board being made up of an even split of genders and legal and non-legal professionals.
Ms Walker-Smith added: "When the members' board took the unorthodox approach to appoint a non-lawyer as chief executive, it demonstrated to the market our commitment to ensuring the priority for us is business growth and providing the best service to our clients, above out-dated traditions."
There have been no redundancies made as a result of the organisational restructure, according to the firm.
