Law firm Russell-Cooke welcomed Anna Richardson as Head of People on 12 October 2020.
Anna Richardson has worked in the legal sector for over 20 years in both Paris and London. She joins from Osborne Clarke where she had worked since 2016 as Senior HR Business Partner. Having led the human resources function in the firm’s corporate, commercial and financial institutions practice group, she latterly led on the employee engagement aspects of a major project to refurbish the firm’s head office. This involved a move to agile working, transitioning from allocated desks to hot desks, going paperlite and overseeing a significant change in working habits in general.
Anna has joined Russell-Cooke with overall responsibility for human resources, graduate recruitment, learning and development and employee engagement across all three offices. Her overarching responsibility is to support the senior management team in delivering the objectives of the people strategy to ensure close alignment with, and support of, the overall business strategy.
Initially, Anna’s key areas of focus will be on culture and values and employee engagement as well as developing the firm’s employer brand. Her experience with an agile working project will be put into practice as Russell-Cooke reviews the move towards increased flexible working that has been accelerated by the pandemic lockdown in March 2020.
Anna joins the firm’s Putney headquarters, reporting to Director of People, Risk and Standards Anu Kapila.
Anu Kapila said: “We are delighted to welcome Anna to the firm. The strong culture at Russell-Cooke is one of the jewels in our crown and has very much come to the fore during the past six months. Amongst many other tasks on her to do list, Anna will work with our recently appointed Equality, Diversity and Inclusion partner and our Wellbeing partner to ensure that we are doing all we should to ensure inclusivity and engagement at all levels and to maintain a strong, mentally healthy, happy community as we move into another challenging time for us all.”
Anna Richardson commented: “I’m excited to be joining Russell-Cooke as Head of People, particularly at this time when people management is so key. I’m looking forward to getting stuck in and hopefully being able to bring my experience from across a number of different law firms and applying it to Russell-Cooke’s very strong and distinctive culture.”