About

The Irish branch of global pharmaceuticals company Pfizer has employed legal director Rory Sullivan since 2006. As part of his role in providing general commercial legal support for all of Pfizer activities in Ireland, Sullivan was involved on the acquisition of Wyeth in 2009. ‘This was a highly complex deal operating in different environments and involved a significant increase in the Irish footprint’, recalls Sullivan. Since then, he has worked on a number of activities for the company to maintain its strong performance in Ireland. Internally, Sullivan moved his legal team on to matrix-working due to a reduction in size in order ‘to ensure that the whole team has knowledge of all parts of the business (to allow continuity provide support) and to ensure full development of individual team members’. Before joining Pfizer, Sullivan held senior legal positions for GSMA and 3Com where he was general counsel EMEA for almost five years and worked on the establishment of a joint venture in China. ‘This taught me the intricacies of working in a large cross-matrix international negotiation in a highly complex deal and I really enjoyed working in China’ he says. From 1992 onwards, Sullivan spent eight years at the Chambers of Alastair Wilson QC, a specialist IP chambers in London, and was a legal assistant in IBM’s patent department between 1989 and 1992. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1989.