Benjamin Olushola

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Benjamin Olushola

Gordon Brothers International, LLC, London

BEN is the associate general counsel at Gordon Brothers, where he operates as the front-line transactional and corporate counsel for the firm’s international business. He advises on legal strategy, transaction structuring and negotiation, and manages deal documentation and execution, among other corporate matters. He has more than 15 years of experience in cross-border restructuring and insolvency matters, including distressed M&A, pre-pack sales, bank resolutions, corporate financial restructurings and formal insolvencies. He has worked on numerous complex restructurings and insolvency transactions involving English administrations, schemes of arrangement, CVAs, liquidations and U.S. chapter 11 proceedings. His experience also spans pre-insolvency and insolvency processes in numerous other jurisdictions, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and Mexico. Previously, he was head of legal for a privately owned special-situations asset-management and investment company, and he was a managing associate at Linklaters, where he worked for over five years in its restructuring and insolvency practice. He began his career at Dentons in its restructuring and insolvency practice.

Ben is a longstanding active member of numerous global organizations, including R3, INSOL Europe, INSOL International, the Insolvency Lawyers Association, TMA (U.K. and Europe), the Dutch Restructuring Association and IWIRC. For over 15 years, he has advised on complex, multi-jurisdictional insolvency, restructuring, bank-resolution and finance transactions covering five continents and more than 35 jurisdictions, including Lehman Brothers, Abengoa, Toys “R” Us, Anglo Irish Bank, Steinhoff and Laura Ashley.

Ben has a passion for cooking, travel (38 countries and counting) and sports, but more than that, he has been a champion of diversity and inclusion in the industry. He has consistently used his position to promote initiatives that will increase access to the profession for aspiring lawyers from nontraditional and minority backgrounds. He volunteers as an advisory board member of Black Lawyers Matter, which provides mentors for aspiring black lawyers around the U.K., and to date he has recruited more than 50 mentors from his network, all senior lawyers from firms like Squire Patton Boggs, Morrison & Foerster and McDermott. He also encouraged Gordon Brothers to sponsor the program, and the firm’s entire Global legal team signed up to be mentors. In addition, he volunteers for Outrunners, which provides after-school running clubs, mentoring and career coaching for children in East London, by contributing to its “run your career” events and “sprint” internship initiative.

Education

  • GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN LEGAL PRACTICE, WITH DISTINCTION, BBP UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL
  • LL.B., UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS LAW SCHOOL

“Ben uses his platform to challenge the legal community on issues of race and inclusion.”