About

Team size: 186

Major legal advisers: CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang, Gateley, Herbert Smith Freehills, Linklaters, Pinsent Masons, Osborne Clarke, Slaughter and May, Womble Bond Dickinson

Centrica’s group GC, Justine Campbell, had big shoes to fill when she replaced prominent and long-serving GC Grant Dawson in March 2019. Added to that, she and her legal team have since been thrust into a major company restructuring designed to reposition the business as a low-carbon energy services provider.

Scrutiny is high in the energy sector at the moment, with regulators and activists putting increasing pressure on suppliers to produce cleaner energy. ‘There’s huge regulatory intervention – an inordinate amount,’ she says. But the bigger question is: how much of it will continue to be politicised? We are seeing a lot of politicians getting involved in regulatory debates around consumer protection in the countries we operate in.’

The result has been a lot of deal-making for the legal team, including electric car and distributed energy transactions, ventures with car parks and support in policy changes for newer business models, like decentralised energy systems. ‘A big trend is the challenges around climate change and how companies deal with it. That’s a huge issue for us everywhere and driving a low-carbon future. Making energy more sustainable will affect my role as much as others,’ says the Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer-trained lawyer.

As part of its restructuring, last year Centrica announced it would be selling its 69% share in Spirit Energy, an oil and gas firm worth more than £1.5bn with a major base in Aberdeen. As a consequence, Campbell has made 35% cost savings over the last few years and has seen a third of her team’s headcount taken out.

Continuing into 2020, Campbell will continue to help the business reconfigure itself as a sustainable energy supplier. She has started moving towards automating legal work in the team, including an online non-disclosure agreement selector. ‘We also have an app called “Ask the expert”, which is online compliance guidance and we’ve got an intake tool we are going to roll out to triage requests,’ she says. ‘It’s all about ensuring that we have the right culture: innovation, driving change, disruption and also about having the right risk appetite in business.’