Georgia M. Quenby

Partner, Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP

Biography:

Georgia read law at Trinity College, Oxford, and has been practicing for over 20 years. As a key component of her work as a leading finance practitioner in the UK, Georgia sits on both the steering and executive committees of the UK’s Secured Transactions Law Reform Project which examines reform of the English law of security to reflect modern global commerce and finance.

Georgia is a licensed insolvency practitioner and has also received the Financial Times Non-Executive Director Diploma.  She is a member of the Institute of Directors and a Distinguished Practitioner Member of the University of Oxford’s Commercial Law Centre. She has a particular interest in corporate governance and directors’ duties in the zone of insolvency.

Georgia is also a well-known speaker, panelist and moderator at Secured Finance Network events, including most recently chairing a panel on the future of retail at the European Chapter’s autumn meeting. She writes prolifically and is published in legal journals as well as in business publications.

Her team at Morgan Lewis in London includes the highly-rated Of Counsel, Victoria Thompson, and excellent associates Meryem Hassan and James Mead, all of whom have worked with Georgia since they qualified as attorneys. 

What do you know now that you wish you knew in the beginning of your career?

That people who tell you “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” have never run a marathon!

How have you approached big career decisions?

I firmly believe in taking chances: be bold and reach for your goals.  I also believe you have to continually refresh and enhance your skillset so that you can keep developing professionally and expanding your horizons. So, over the course of the last 20 years in addition to my first qualification as a UK lawyer, I qualified as a New York attorney, then 10 years later as an insolvency practitioner, and most recently as a non-executive director. 

The decision to move to Morgan Lewis with my team last year was a huge one for me, and I evaluated both the business opportunities and the cultural fit thoroughly, knowing that I would need to commit 100% of my energies to making the change successful, and that I would be relying on the Morgan Lewis team to do the same thing. For our ABL team the combination has more than delivered on its potential to deliver a true cross-border ABL practice serving banks and other lenders efficiently and cost-effectively.

What do you enjoy most about your role? Least?

I have a real sense of privilege and a responsibility in building my team. Working with them to deliver results for our clients is definitely the best thing about my role. I’m lucky that I don’t really have a least favorite thing – I even enjoy proofreading!

How do you balance work/personal time?

I generally take three or four weeks off a year, to ski, to surf, or just sit around and read a book. I use that time away from the office to think about my business plan for the season ahead and to plan articles I want to write, training sessions I need to prepare for and to evaluate risks and opportunities to the business.  I love to surf, and I think about a career as one where sometimes you’re paddling out against a really strong current, and sometimes you catch that wonderful wave which leaves you smiling and exhilarated for ages.  Balance isn’t something that I necessarily achieve on a daily basis; some patches are long and hard, but the rewards do come, and not always when you’re expecting them.

Tell us something about yourself that may surprise people.

I’ve run several marathons now, and my “favorite” was the Death Valley Trail Marathon in 2016 which I ran with a good friend of mine whom I met when we were at the same law firm in Asia in 1995.

Walk me through a typical day in your life

Generally, I start the day with a run before breakfast. Having breakfast with my family has always been very important to me – partly because you don’t always know when you’ll get home!

I’m often the first in the office so I write my “to do” list for the day, and then have a team briefing to make sure we have eyes on all our current deals and are looking at business development opportunities.

I often have coffee or lunch with a client and spend some time prepping for one of the conferences or events I am speaking at or organizing. The afternoon is usually back-to-back conference calls on deals from about 1pm until around 7p.m.

I try to get home for dinner by about 8p.m. or 8:30p.m. and respond to any emails before bed so I can sleep with a clear conscience!