About

A solicitor specialising in investment funds and asset management by background and training, Catherine Fitzsimons joined Fidelity International in 2015 as senior legal counsel for Irish operations, insurance company and fund or product range. At the beginning of 2017, Fitzsimons was promoted to head of European product legal, with responsibility for all legal and regulatory aspects of Fidelity International’s European fund range, which is domiciled in Luxembourg, the UK, Ireland and France. In 2018, she was promoted again to assume global responsibility for the legal matters associated with Fidelity International’s cross-border fund ranges. This work is mainly focused in Europe and across Asia. She is also a director of all Fidelity International’s Irish domiciled fund and fund management companies. Prior to joining Fidelity International, Fitzsimons spent several years in private practice in both large domestic (Matheson), and international (Walkers Global) law firms, advising clients on all aspects of fund management companies domiciled or listed in Ireland. Her role includes responsibility for the legal work associated with all of Fidelity’s cross-border fund ranges, for the first time this sits within one team of global specialists, with a deep understanding and experience of investment funds and associated legal and regulatory issues across a range of complex jurisdictions. Fitzsimons advised Fidelity International on establishing its ETF range domiciled in Dublin, which launched in 2017. She highlights that ‘this was a really exciting proposition as it allowed [me] to combine my private practice experience advising other ETF providers, with a much deeper strategic and operational understanding gained in-house at Fidelity’. When she joined Fidelity in 2015, there were just over 20 employees in the Dublin office, that number now sits at over 300. She adds that ‘this was an incredibly exciting project – both as a lawyer, but more importantly, as a member of the Dublin management team, which helped [me] gain an understanding of Fidelity’s global strategic ambitions, far above the understanding of clients [I] would have gained in private practice’. She has also advised on Fidelity’s multi-asset business on the establishment of a new Irish domiciled range of funds, which facilitated its investors in accessing the capabilities of the best active managers from across the industry at a lower cost than was previously possible. It also facilitated the launch of Fidelity’s digital asset management “Fidelity Wealth Expert” to facilitate the changing needs of digital savers and investors. In the words of a nominator, ‘Catherine Fitzsimons is an innovative, technically excellent lawyer with a keen focus on delivering the rights results for her company and, particularly, its clients. She has always been willing to look outside her immediate industry and role to take in and adapt models and learnings. Inspired by this, she has overseen an internal re-organisation of her entire European legal team, which has meant that each task taken on by the team is assigned to multiple team members, often located in different countries, working together in a pod. This has resulted in better continuity of service to the business’.