General Counsel Search for a Defence Scale-Up

A first hire carrying full responsibility. 

As sole legal counsel, this person would own every legal matter for the business: managing external counsel, leading long-term legal strategy, and handling day-to-day legal work with no internal team to share the load.

Undefined scope. 

Before any search could begin, the immediate task was working with the client to identify which skill sets would matter most as the business scaled, rather than searching against a generic General Counsel brief.

Supply chain growth at pace. 

The business was scaling its supplier base many times over within a short window, making experience negotiating and structuring supply chain agreements a core requirement rather than a preference.

Specialist regulatory exposure. 

As a defence manufacturer, the business operates in one of the most heavily regulated environments there is. The role required specific expertise in export controls for military-use technology, not general regulatory experience.

Exit-readiness. 

With the business working towards a future exit, the client wanted a hire with the seniority and experience to help prepare the organisation for acquisition, not just manage its present-day legal needs.

The search itself was not the starting point. Before any candidates were approached, the priority was a detailed discovery process with the client, working through the business's upcoming plans to establish exactly which skill sets would be most valuable and translating that into a scope candidates would recognise and respond to.

Once that scope was set, the role attracted strong, well-targeted interest. From the first batch of candidates presented, one stood out immediately: a former Global Head of Export Controls at one of the world's largest defence contractors, who had gone on to help build the defence investment arm of a Middle East investment authority from the ground up. That combination, deep export control expertise at multinational scale, paired with direct experience inside a business built from nothing, matched the brief precisely.

A senior appointment, made fast. The full process, from initial client instruction to accepted offer, took four to five weeks. For a General Counsel hire at this level of seniority, involving international relocation, that is an exceptionally quick turnaround.

The right combination of experience. The appointed General Counsel brought export control expertise from a top-five global defence contractor together with hands-on experience building a function from scratch, exactly the blend the business needed as its first legal hire.

A business ready for its next phase. The client now has an in-house General Counsel equipped to manage supply chain growth, regulatory exposure and long-term legal strategy as it works towards its next stage of scaling and eventual exit.

This placement reflects the value of front-loaded discovery over a purely candidate-led search. By establishing precisely what the business needed before going to market, JMC Legal was able to identify a highly specific match from a very small pool of genuinely suitable candidates, and move quickly once that match was found.