Two leadership appointments in Australia have seen Norton Rose Fulbright unveil its first female regional managing partner while top independent Clayton Utz is ushering in a new chief executive. Alison Deitz will succeed Wayne Spanner as Australia managing partner at Norton Rose while Bruce Cooper (pictured) has been lined up to succeed Rob Cutler as Clayton Utz's next chief executive partner.

Both Deitz and Cooper will take up their new roles on 1 July 2020.

Deitz will oversee Norton Rose’s network of Australian offices in Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, as well as sitting on its global executive committee.

A partner since 1998, she is head of the firm’s Australia business law practice group, encompassing the banking and finance, corporate M&A, real estate, financial restructuring and insolvency, financial services, tax and technology teams.

She said: "We have so much talent here in Australia and throughout our global firm. I am determined to nurture this and deploy it in an agile way for our clients’ benefit."

Cooper joined Clayton Utz in 2010 as a partner from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, where he headed up the UK magic circle firm’s Asian finance group.

In 2014 he was appointed to one of two new deputy chief executive partner positions at the firm with a brief to oversee its international strategy.

In July, Clayton Utz featured in fifth place in Lawyers Weekly’s annual ranking of Australia’s most-admired firms, based on a survey of 1,000 legal professionals. Norton Rose was placed ninth in the ranking, which was conducted in association with Momentum Intelligence.