About

Coca-Cola Amatil is one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of ready-to-drink non-alcohol and alcohol beverages, coffee and food snacks in the Asia Pacific region, and one of the world’s larger bottlers of The Coca-Cola company’s product range. Coca-Cola Amatil’s legal counsel Nick Phillips started his career in the legal profession in the Wellington office of Bell Gully (New Zealand) in February 2014, advising on a range of corporate matters from company secretarial work to acquisitions, as well as commercial advices and contract reviews. In late 2016, he moved to Sydney and accepted a position at Ashurst, focusing on private and public transactions. Only four months into his time with Ashurst, Phillips was offered a secondment with Coca-Cola Amatil, a major client of the firm at the time. His secondment was extended multiple times during 2017 before he was offered a permanent role in the Coca-Cola Amatil legal team starting in January 2018. Phillips is a highly praised legal counsel showing great career potential. According to one nominator, ‘Phillips is one of the most talented and commercially astute young lawyers I have encountered in my career. He has an enormous capability for working on a wide array of initiatives and projects all at the same time, and always displays a level of calm and control’. Another nominator states ‘[His] attitude to his work and passion to help the business achieve desired outcomes is second to none. He is an all-rounder in the truest sense and is an incredibly hard-working and talented lawyer’. Recently, Phillips has worked closely with Coca-Cola Amatil’s sales teams to help secure the extension of an agreement with Hungry Jack’s to 2030; win Pizza Hut’s Australian business for the first time; and secure supply to Craveable Brands (Oporto, Red Rooster; and Chicken Treat). On top of ‘business as usual’ work, he has also advised on major projects, including M&A activity within the Amatil group and the involvement in container deposit schemes. Phillips feels that the ever-increasing impact of technology on organisations will undoubtedly have a significant impact on his career. ‘Often, new or improved technologies can trigger organisations to take the plunge on implementation without having fully considered the implications. For this reason, in-house legal teams will need to keep their finger on the pulse of their businesses, as well as being a trusted adviser to their organisation, so that they are involved as early as possible in the cost and benefit analysis’, he says. Commenting on the skills that general counsels of the future may need in order to successfully advise businesses, Phillips states: ‘It is evident that there is a growing trend of businesses wanting their in-house legal counsel to be more commercial. As such, general counsels of the future will need to become experts in balancing their professional obligations with the increasing pressure from within their organisation to support commercial outcomes. To help achieve this, general counsels will need to work closely with trusted external counsel who are able to provide advice in a form that facilitates commercial decision making, not only for the general counsel, but also their colleagues across the organisation’.