Meetings are run locally in the South West and provide both educational and networking opportunities for managing partners and other senior members of the management team. MPF South West connects the local professional services community with the wider MPF network, whilst generating real value for members closer to home. As a membership organisation, all our meetings are member only. However, those interested in joining are welcome to attend one event as our guest in order to get a feel for the group. See current event or download previous meeting report
Please contact your local Regional Director or MPF Executive Director, Paul Lemon if you wish to hear more about our events and/or membership.
In addition to a vibrant national roundtable programme to share knowledge and personal experience of management challenges, the MPF serves as an honest broker collecting and analysing confidential peer and client data.
Insights are curated and shared amongst leaders and their management teams worldwide to ensure professional firms can take better informed decisions on aspects of firm strategy.
Examples include:
The final piece in the knowledge mix are confidential Peer groups that allow leaders to share ‘here and now’ experiences and challenges with others in an intimate an confidential team working environment. Member only groups are organised around areas of special interest, management roles and experience.
The Forum has been a noisy campaigner for over 15 years in changing internal attitudes towards practice management in professional firms. This has seen various campaigns, articles, surveys and reports on behalf of members to share best practice and prompt quality discussion amongst the firm management team.
Since 2011 we have been working with a UK government advisory board, the ‘Professional & Business Services Group’, whose role is to raise issues and share ideas that impact the ‘competitiveness of UK Plc’. The ‘‘MPF CEO Priorities Monitor’’ helps firms and policy makers take decisions based on an improved understanding of prospects, priorities and challenges seen by the professions.
Chair: David Pester - Named ‘Managing Partner of the Year' in the 2007 British Legal Awards, has been Managing Partner of TLT since 2002. David is responsible for the firm's strategy and development and is regarded by market commentators as the driving force behind TLT's exceptional growth, impressive client wins, strong financial performance and growing national reputation. Chambers UK, 2009 commends David for "his strong leadership skills". David continues to be involved with client work and is a corporate finance specialist recommended as a 'Leader in his Field' by independent guides to the legal sector, Chambers and Legal 500. David speaks regularly on management issues and is a member of the Managing Partners' Forum Executive committee. David qualified as a solicitor in 1989
Director: Simon Chadwick is joint head and co-founder of Chadwick Nott, Simon has been involved in legal recruitment since 1990. He specialises in high profile partner and team moves, mergers and acquisitions, recruitment brand building, UK / worldwide recruitment & retention strategy, and targeted business growth. He has also worked on a number of discreet projects to build up or re-engineer teams or departments in law firms.
Simon can be contacted on 07768 094648
John Banister joined Wiggin in 2003 as Chief Operating Officer responsible for driving the Firm's strategic impetus towards becoming the media law firm of choice. John is MBA trained and has charted a career through some of the heavy weights of investment banking, accounting and the legal professions including Merrill Lynch, KPMG and Linklaters. As a non-lawyer, management specialist John enjoys the opportunity to view the Firm from the outside in.
Kate Blackburn lives in Somerset and has over 20 years’ experience of developing and managing people and change within both law firms and barristers’ chambers and as a self-employed consultant and business coach within Sherwood PSF Consulting. Kate’s career ranges from the Armed Forces (post-University), Freshfields as International Project Manager, and then CEO of a large, multi-disciplinary barristers’ chambers in Bristol. Current coaching work focuses on career and practice development for senior individuals, specialising in helping those applying for silk and judicial appointments, as well as wider talent management initiatives. Her MBA is in Legal Practice (Nottingham Law School); she is a qualified NVQ Assessor, an MBTI Assessor and a Meyler Campbell qualified business coach. When not working, she loves being outside in her garden, tiring out her boisterous Labrador, entertaining, skiing and yoga.
Anne Compton has been Managing Partner of Cotswolds and south-west law firm Rickerbys since October 2005 and prior to that was a partner in the firm’s Corporate and Commercial Team. With particular expertise in advising GP’s, vets and other professional practices on partnership matters, Anne is a member of the Association of Partnership Practitioners and a long-standing member of the panel of judges for the Gloucestershire Business Awards.
Jeremy Sweetland, Guildhall Chambers
Paul Williams is director of office agency in the Bristol office. He has more than 15 years experience in the Bristol office agency market and has a successful track record acting for both landlords and tenants in Bristol and the South West. Paul joined Savills in May 2008 in order to set up an Office Agency department for the Bristol office. Previously, he spent some 15 years with niche agency practice, Lipfriend Dawson, prior to their takeover by Colliers CRE in July 2005, where he was a Director.