Pinsent Masons has announced that top corporate lawyer Andrew Masraf is to succeed Richard Foley as senior partner. 

Masraf will take over 1 October at the end of Foley’s second four-year term, the maximum allowed by the firm. 

Masraf joined Pinsents as a trainee in 1993 and has subsequently held a number of leadership positions including global head of corporate and, more recently, global head of the firm’s transactions services group. A private equity specialist, Masraf has particular experience in advising management teams on PE transactions and has also led Pinsents’ relationships with three of its largest infrastructure sector clients.

His recent work at Pinsents has included advising M Group Services on its acquisition of Skanska Construction UK’s infrastructure services business and advising the management team of email signature software provider Exclaimer on the company’s MBO. 

“I’m excited to be taking on the senior partner role and motivated about what we, as a business, can achieve together,” Masraf said. “Pinsent Masons has made significant strides under Richard’s leadership. We have a mindset that consistently seeks to deliver new solutions and develop different ways of working as our clients and markets evolve. This, combined with the culture that we have cultivated as a purpose-led business, means Pinsent Masons is an organisation that never stands still.”

Masraf will take on the senior partner role following Pinsents’ tenth consecutive year of revenue growth, with the firm reporting last week that fee income had risen by 6% to £531.1m for the 2022 financial year against a 16% hike in PEP to £739,000. 

The firm is also seeking to re-orientate itself to be ‘a purpose-led, professional services firm that has law at its core’ and in 2020 revamped its reporting metrics to cover a wider range of criteria for measuring success to better reflect its values beyond PEP. 

The firm assesses its performance against four core metrics – client focus, people and development opportunities, ESG and commercial results. Highlights from the past year include the firm growing revenue generated by professional services offerings via Pinsent Masons Vario by 40.5% and becoming one of the first law firms to have its net-zero target verified.

Pinsents also launched 11 new client solutions and products and supported more than 100 clients with their responsible business and D&I strategies.

“Re-orienting our strategy around our purpose has helped us to deliver the best for our clients and our people, and created a business that we are proud of,” Foley commented. “We’ve come a long way in eight years, and I’m excited for what the future holds for Pinsent Masons. My sincere congratulations to Andrew, he will make an excellent senior partner and the firm simply couldn’t be in better hands.”

It is not known what Foley's next move will be and he is said currently to be focused on ensuring a smooth handover.

Foley has himself been with Pinsents for more than 30 years and prior to becoming senior partner advised on rail, road, airport and port projects across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He also headed the firm’s construction advisory and disputes practice, the projects and construction team and the Asia practice.

Pinsents’ revenue has grown by 47% during Foley’s time as senior partner, which also saw it add more than 300 lawyers to its overall headcount to now house almost 2,000.

Over the past eight years it has opened offices across Europe in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Dublin and Madrid, launched in South Africa in Johannesburg and across Australia in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. 

Earlier this month the firm also set up shop in Luxembourg with the hire of a team of 23 lawyers from local independent Wildgen, which subsequently disbanded.