Caroline McGrory, Chief Legal Officer, Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games - E130

Caroline McGrory is the Chief Legal Officer for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. She started off her career in private practice before moving in house to IMG (the global sports marketing agency) in 2000. She then moved back into private practice to become the inaugural Head of the Sports Group at Charles Russell Speechlys LLP (then Charles Russell).

After this, Caroline joined what was then B.A.R (British American Racing) as Legal Director and as a member of the senior management team. Caroline was part of the Management team who undertook a buy out of the team from Honda in 2009 to create Brawn GP which went on to win both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ World Championships in that year (whilst she was a shareholder and director of the team). The team was purchased by Daimler in 2010 and competes as the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team.

Caroline’s role at Mercedes expanded beyond a pure legal role when she became the Director of Legal and Commercial Affairs. She however continued to manage all legal aspects of the successful operation of a Formula One team, including negotiating drivers’ contracts, sponsorship and regulatory matters.

In December 2016 Caroline took the leap into football to undertake a new challenge, having been in Formula One for 13 years, when she joined Leicester City Football Club as their first General Counsel before moving on to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

In the podcast Caroline discusses:

2:09 - Why she got into law and transitioning into an in-house role
11:22 - The lessons and skills she learnt working in private practice
14:17 - Having a mentality of always wanting to improve
15:05 - How she manages people and teams
19:23 - Her time at Mercedes F1 team and what she took from the experience
21:45 - Being a working mum in a high performance environment
22:21 - Leadership skills she values
33:44 - Working at Leicester City FC
40:21 - How the working structure in football differs to F1
44:54 - Her role at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games
57:10 - The importance of volunteering in the legal space
1:04:09 - The important characteristics she looks for in colleagues
1:10:11 - Her advice to private practice lawyers when pitching for work

We thoroughly enjoyed the interview and took a lot away from it. We hope you do the same. 

The host is Sean Cottrell (@spcott), founder and CEO of LawInSport.

For more sports law news, commentary and analysis go to LawInSport.com
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