Nicola Raj

Nicola has over twenty-five years’ experience as an adviser and in-house lawyer for a variety of listed & privately owned, global and SME companies

She has been involved in a variety of industries, advising City financial & insurance institutions, unions, as well as working for a venture capital backed enterprise. She has extensive experience of various aspects of the media, including at one of the largest global communications networks (Publicis Groupe S.A.), before becoming the global GC for a media tech company, where she worked on a number of international acquisitions. She was also the personal lawyer for an ultra-high net worth international family, as well as a stint working for Airbnb EMEA. She is currently consulting for a multinational electrical equipment corporation in a global role.

Her work with the family led to experience of setting the strategy for a Swiss Private Bank; property portfolios and trusts, as well as regularly assessing potential investment opportunities. The Publicis Groupe worked on a shared service model, enabling the individual brands (eg Saatchi & Saatchi, Sapient, Starcom Media) to retain a significant degree of independence, which meant working with large and small brands within the group. As Global GC, she was used to problem solving in unfamiliar jurisdictions, and dealing with unexpected challenges such as the Russia/Ukraine situation.

Nicola is authorised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and lives in Central London. She enjoys both City breaks as well as trekking to such places as Kilimanjaro, the Lost City in Colombia, and Roraima in Venezuela. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and has also undertaken a 200-hour Yoga Alliance teacher training certification (RYA200). She holds a mini-MBA from Birkbeck, University of London, and is an accredited workplace mediator. She is an NED for a social enterprise supporting financially disadvantaged (Clean Slate) and volunteers for a charity, Zero Gravity, which mentors high achieving sixth formers from low-income backgrounds into university and their first jobs.