Heather Panton
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With 15 years of hands-on legal experience in national security and intelligence, combined with her commercial acumen, Heather is uniquely positioned to offer strategic and practical advice to security, intelligence and defence companies. Her deep understanding of government operations, ensures that the companies she supports can thrive in highly regulated and mission-critical environments both in the UK and internationally. ​
Partner
More About Heather
Heather offers a unique blend of public and private sector legal and compliance expertise, and she specialises in helping national security, intelligence, and defence companies to successfully navigate the intersection of government regulation and commercial obligations. She helps start-ups (working for or with the government) to navigate the complex obligations of government defence and national security departments in addition to meeting their own commercial regulatory requirements so they can align business objectives and manage risks effectively.
After training as a government lawyer, Heather spent 3 years in the National Crime Agency and 10 years advising on national security matters – across both advisory and litigation - in the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office ("FCDO"). She spent 18 months seconded to Barclays Bank working in the financial crime legal team before joining defence tech start-up, Labrys Technologies, as their General Counsel.
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In addition to the specific areas of legal advice expertise, Heather has broad experience in conducting risk assessments, advising on due diligence and governance frameworks, developing and drafting policies and procedures, reviewing contractual relationships, and preparing and delivering practical training to leadership and cross-functional teams. She also has significant experience in setting up and leading ‘Red Team’ exercises to assess company decisions and strategies by exposing vulnerabilities, challenging assumptions, and uncovering blind spots through simulated adversarial tactics.