Corporate Vision March 2017

CORPORATE VISION / March 2017 81 , Winston & Strawn is an international lawfirmoffering support to clients across a wide range of practice areas. We explore how the firmdraws on the experience of Zoe Ashcroft, Partner in its UK office, to ensure success for its clients. Creating a Legacy of Excellence in Law For more than 160 years, Winston & Strawn LLP has served as a trusted adviser and advocate for clients across virtually every industry. In that time, through careful growth and thoughtful fiscal management, the firm have built a law practice with tremendous breadth and a global reach. Among the team at the firm’s London office is Partner Zoë Ashcroft, an English qualified solicitor, who is one of the founding partners of Winston & Strawn London LLP, and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. She concentrates her practice on cross-border matters and leads the firm’s business and finance practice in London. As a lawyer Zoe has more than 25 years of experience handling complex cross-border deals for a broad range of corporate clients, with a particular focus on clients who are either operating or investing in the United Kingdom, or who are based in the United States, Continental Europe, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere who select English law as the governing law for their cross- border transactions. Her experience includes cross-border mergers and acquisitions; strategic alliances and joint ventures; private equity investments; high-yield debt offerings and private placements (of both debt and equity); and corporate lending (representing both lenders and borrowers). In addition, Zoe also advises companies with respect to securities offerings, including London Stock Exchange listings; Alternative Investment Market listings; and dual listings on these markets in conjunction with the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ; and most recently on the first dual listing of shares in a Nigerian company, on the London main market, and Lagos Stock Exchange. Her clients include companies in a variety of industry sectors, including: oil and gas, clean technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, consumer/retail products and services, general industrial, and financial services/ investment funds. Alongside her vast industry experience, Zoe also relies on an impressive career to support her clients. She received an LL.B. from the University of Bristol, England, in 1986 and completed her Law Society Final Examinations at the College of Law Guildford, England, in 1987. She Qualified as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England & Wales in 1989 and was admitted as a Solicitor in Hong Kong in 1990. In order to give back to the wider law industry and share her knowledge and expertise, Zoe is a member of the Law Society of England and Wales and the UK Institute of Directors. She serves as a director and special counsel to Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, a UK-registered charity which arranges mentoring and internship opportunities for persons from underrepresented ethnic minorities within the investment banking, corporate law, and other sectors. She has also been appointed as a trustee on the Board of The Climate Group, a not-for- profit organization working internationally with business and political leaders to advance clean technologies and policies to cut global greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate a prosperous low carbon economy. Drawing on this vast industry experience, Zoe has led the London office corporate transactional and finance team since co-founding the firm’s London office in 2003. The team has been ranked in the UK, EMEA, and Global Editions of the annual Legal 500 clients’ guide to the legal professions among the leading law firms in the United Kingdom in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, banking and finance, and projects, energy, and natural resources (oil and gas). With this vast industry expertise and dedication to her craft it is no wonder that Zoe and her team have achieved this success, and looking to the future she and her staff will be keen to build upon these achievements and continue to serve both current and future clients to the very highest standard. K Company: Winston & Strawn Phone: +44 20 7011 8725 Email: [email protected] Website: www.winston.com 1702CV15