By the end of October 2016, Baker & McKenzie will have a new global chairperson – but with four quite different candidates having thrown their hat in the ring, sources are divided on what the election means for the firm.
The contenders for Bakers’ fourteenth global chair are all strong: London managing partner Paul Rawlinson, EMEA chair Gary Senior, Latin America chair Claudia Prado and former Paris managing partner Eric Lasry.
Senior and Prado are currently on the firm’s executive committee and Lasry was formerly a member of the group. They have helped Bakers reach goals such as achieving a 50 per cent female presence on the board, launching Belfast as its second global services centre and being granted the first Chinese joint operation licence with FenXun partners last year.
Prado is the first woman to stand as global chair since Christine Lagarde, who was the firm’s first female chair from 1999 to 2004. She chairs the firm’s financial committee and diversity and inclusion committee, and is the regional chairman of the Latin America regional council.
“Claudia is fantastic, really impressive,” a former partner says. While welcoming the prospect of another female chair, the partner says there is doubt whether she will succeed in the global elections because she is from the same region as Leite, and partners may not want to choose two successive candidates from Brazil.
According to sources at the firm, UK managing partner Rawlinson may have a good chance to gain the top role because of his pull with partnership in Europe.
“I’m a big fan of Paul’s,” a partner says. “He’s the most charismatic of them all.”
But others claim that Rawlinson is far from having an advantage in this race. His predecessor Senior has longer experience in management which may give him the edge, although he is seen as a more “traditional and conservative” candidate by the partnership.
Senior became a partner in 1992 and was managing partner of the London office from 2003 until 2013, before taking on the EMEA chair role in 2014.
“I have no idea about the odds,” a former partner says, “but if you’re going into a voting booth you would have thought who should be running the business. That would probably be Gary.”
A consultant believes that Senior and Rawlinson might have some backlash from non-traditionalist partners who are looking for a global leader not from London or the US. “There is a bit of a not-London vibe going on,” he claims.
A possible candidate for those partners is Lasry, who served as managing partner of the Paris office, was a member of the firm’s executive committee, and is the current chairman of the European Regional Council.
Lasry, who suffered what one former Bakers partner calls a “bruising defeat” against Leite in 2010, has a modernising agenda and would be an “impressive leader” for the firm.
Leite’s hand on the tiller has been a steady one for the last six years, and he has overseen the firm’s fastest global expansion in its history. In a leadership interview with The Lawyer in 2014, Leite said “if you don’t get things done in six years then forget it”.
Back in 2004, when Bakers launched its basic strategy paper, Leite was in the room along with Conroy and Lagarde. In 2008 it reviewed its strategy but when the crisis hit several of its projects were put on hold. In 2010, at the start of Leite’s term as chairman, Bakers began relaunching these initiatives – looking at areas such as expanding into jurisdictions like Myanmar, refocusing on key practices and sectors, and building client trust.
Leite was handed a two-year extension in 2014 after not being opposed in the firm’s internal elections. His role following the 2016 elections is yet to be announced.
Despite the global expansion, Bakers has in recent years lost its position as the world’s largest firm by revenue. The 2014/15 financial year saw a 4 per cent turnover drop from $2.54bn to $2.43bn, a fall which Leite attributed to currency fluctuations. His successor will be faced with the challenge of revitalising growth while continuing Bakers’ recent focus on serving its clients in a more joined-up way around the world.
Whether that will involve continued evolution or revolution will very much depend on which of the four candidates ultimately meets the approval of the firm’s 1,400 partners later this year.