About

With an illustrious career spanning private practice and in-house, the ‘ambidextrous’ Tom Maher has been GC at internationally listed public companies, and partner at major corporate firms. ‘A leading expert in the life sciences industry’, Maher supported Mainstay Medical in its historic IPO, leading a legal team across Ireland, France and the US. ‘I regard the IPO of Mainstay Medical, which comprised a dual listing on the ESM of the Irish Stock Exchange and Euronext Paris, as a highlight achievement’, Maher says. ‘Mainstay Medical is the first company in history to be dual-listed in Ireland and France. The process of the IPO in these two different legal systems was novel and complex in many ways’. During his time at Amarin Corporation, Maher built a sophisticated legal team from scratch, which supported a number of strategic global transactions. As Mainstay’s first in-house lawyer, Maher is in the process of building a cohesive function to support the company’s significant global growth. ‘I have done this previously and find the exercise challenging and very rewarding’, Maher says. ‘It is a great opportunity to be able to create the legal function from a blank page and shape it optimally for the future’. When working with outside counsel, Maher stresses ‘efficiency’ on both sides. ‘A key driver in the efficiency dynamic is the selection of the right team in the right firm for the transaction at hand’, he adds.