About

‘Patrick Wilkinson has been head of Northern Trust’s legal department since 2004, and has been a member of its Irish executive management team since 2008. Northern Trust are one of the largest service providers in the Irish funds industry, ranked third in the list of largest administrators (with assets under administration of almost $475bn as at 30 June 2018) and depositaries, employing over 1,500 people in Ireland alone. The legal team takes a very central role in strategic decision-making within Northern Trust and Wilkinson himself is renowned in the Irish industry for his independence of thought and determination. He works in an area where regulatory change often requires significant amendments to contracts applicable to a service provider’s entire client base (for example UCITS V or GDPR). Wilkinson and his team have pioneered an innovative approach to negotiating those amendments with clients, creating a Northern Trust template based on comments received from all of the Irish law firms practising in the asset management sector. This ensures that a more “client friendly” template is shared with clients and reduces the time it then takes Northern Trust and the relevant law firm to negotiate on behalf of each individual client. In a time and cost sensitive sector, this approach saves clients time and money, as well as creating efficiencies for Northern Trust and its legal team. Wilkinson maintains excellent relations with his clients and is highly respected, both by Northern Trust’s clients’ in-house counsel and the external counsel in the Irish market who advise those clients’.