The latest moves and appointments for wealth management roles in the UK, other parts of Europe, the Middle East and select international locations.

Stanhope Capital Group
This week, Stanhope Capital Group, a wealth management and advisory group, appointed James Lawlor as partner and head of real estate for the group.

Eric Vu Anh has also been appointed as investment manager, senior associate, and will work alongside Lawlor in the real estate team, managing the group’s real estate access vehicles and direct funds, the firm said in a statement.

Lawlor is joining Stanhope from Aviva Investors, where he was an investment director, responsible for reshaping the firm’s real estate portfolio and for delivering specialist transactional expertise to its real estate funds, the firm added.

During his time at Aviva, he played a key role in the firm's £500 million worth of acquisitions and £1.5 billion of sales. Prior to this, he worked as an associate director at Cushman & Wakefield, during which time he developed a strong network of high net worth private investors, institutional investors and domestic and overseas property companies.

In total, he brings more than 16 years’ experience in investment, strategic advisory and transactional expertise across Europe to his new role at Stanhope, the firm said.

Eric Vu Anh is joining Stanhope from Cortland, where he was responsible for investment analysis, transactions, and treasury management of the firm’s European platform. Prior to this, he was at BCCAP Capital, Urban Exposure and BNP Paribas, giving him well-rounded experience across all real estate sub-sectors in origination, fund commitments and debt and equity transactions. He is French and started his career in Paris, before moving to London.

Welcoming them to the firm, Daniel Pinto, founder and CEO of Stanhope Capital Group, said: “The development of our private investment activities – including real estate – is a key element in our strategy to serve entrepreneurs across their needs. They will work alongside our wealth management professionals to provide our clients with access to high quality real estate investment opportunities into funds and direct transactions.”

Constantine Law    
Constantine Law, an employment and regulatory specialist law firm, this week recruited Nicola O’Connor to join the firm.

The appointment takes Constantine Law to a headcount of nine partners and 13 fee-earning staff, with an all-female team of four senior lawyers within the firm’s regulatory and investigations practice, the firm said in a statement.

O’Connor is joining from international firm, Bird & Bird, bringing with her over 20 years of experience advising senior professionals and corporates in relation to financial crime offences and risk management. She regularly advises those at senior management and director level.

Her focus is on leading internal investigations into regulatory breaches or alleged financial crime including fraud, bribery and corruption, facilitating tax evasion and money laundering offences.  She also guides businesses when reporting to regulators and during regulatory investigations. 

O’Connor advises international corporate clients, performing reviews, stress tests and developing AML, anti-bribery and corruption, modern slavery and fraud prevention programmes.  She supports compliance functions and MLRO’s, and also provides a triage service to businesses to assist with AML queries and reporting concerns.

She provides bespoke training to businesses in relation to financial crime topics and the preventative procedures that need to be in place to avoid regulatory breaches. The training also extends to preparing for the possibility of a dawn raid conducted by HMRC, SFO or the police.

O’Connor is joining a growing team of senior lawyers at Constantine Law, a firm set up by John Hayes in 2015, which recruited employment partner Suki Hayes last year, and regulatory and corporate crime partners Emma Vernon (consultant) and Jemma Sherwood-Roberts. In January 2021, the firm joined forces with Nick Hine and his specialist employment team from Hine Legal.

Welcoming her to the firm, managing partner John Hayes said: “At Constantine Law we have created a new type of law firm – one that is entrepreneurial and agile and works to a lean business model delivering a smarter, more responsive service to our clients. We are without the fixed costs of many firms which enables us to offer senior expert advice at extremely good value prices.”

"The fact that we now have an all-female regulatory team is a testament to the attractions of working for a collegiate firm like ours in these modern times and a testament to our business model," he added.