PROFILE: FARMIDA BI
A
rriving in the UK at the age of six from Pakistan, Farmida took some time to adjust to her new way of life. But by the age of 13, she had learnt
to speak and read English fluently and at 14 years old had decided that practising law was the profession for her in a rather “Damascene moment”. This epiphany came quite suddenly while waiting in a school corridor before the start of a lesson, when she concluded that her “combination of idealism and argumentativeness” made it the ideal career choice for her. A quick scan of some of her career
highlights confirms she made the right decision about her future. While climbing the career ladder (see next section outlining her journey), she didn’t forget her idealism, combining her work on multibillion-dollar debt capital markets transactions with pro bono work, such as the world’s first humanitarian impact bond, which funded physical rehabilitation centres for the International Committee of the Red Cross. Recognition of her success has come with multiple awards, and in 2020 she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to law and charity. She believes that this is an incredibly
exciting time to be leading a law firm, with the many challenges facing businesses of all kinds after Brexit and emerging from the pandemic, including technological, cultural, economic, and geopolitical changes. “I have never seen so many aspects of life change at the same time,” she says, “and this gives rise to an unprecedented opportunity to do things better in the future.”
An impressive career After graduating in law from Downing College, Cambridge in 1989, Farmida trained as a solicitor at Clifford Chance, before working as an associate at J.P. Morgan and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton (see Farmida’s CV boxout for more detail). In 1992, she qualified as a solicitor and in 2002 became a partner at
CISI.ORG/REVIEW
global law firm Denton Wilde Sapte. After six years, she joined international law firm Norton Rose Fulbright as a lateral partner in 2008, specialising in debt capital markets and Islamic finance, before being elected by her partners as EMEA chair in 2018 – the first female chair of a major UK law firm. In January 2022, she became global chair of Norton Rose Fulbright. She built an impressive career along the
way, specialising in debt capital markets and acting for both governments and global investment banks and corporations. “I feel very fortunate to have been involved in so many interesting transactions and market developments, from the focus on Latin America in the early 1990s to the growth of the tech sector and Islamic finance in the early 2000s,” she says. She has also been a key figure in the
field of Islamic finance and was “involved with the development of the global sukuk (Islamic bond) market from almost the beginning”, describing this as a “rare opportunity as a lawyer” and a “real highlight to participate in the development of an entirely new market”. She advised on many market-leading deals, including the first UK sukuk, the first musharakah (Shariah-compliant investment partnership) structured sukuk, and the first residential mortgage securitisation sukuk, with her prominence in this field leading to her being named one of the five most powerful Muslim women in the UK, according to the inaugural Muslim Women Power List 2009, published by The Times newspaper in conjunction with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a UK government body.
A multicultural perspective When Farmida began her career in the City of London in the early 1990s, it was in a very different environment to today. Technology was limited and she recalls that there were very few senior women within organisations. There was “little diversity of any kind”, but she persevered because she “enjoyed the international work” and developed good friendships with her
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PHOTOGRAPHY: KARL ATTARD PHOTOGRAPHY
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