AGC Conference 2025 – Planning your 2026 AGM and reporting agenda

Will Chalk, Ashurst

Will is a Partner in the Corporate practice at Ashurst. He provides corporate governance and compliance advice to UK listed, AIM and larger private companies. This includes advice on directors' duties, FCA Handbook and AIM Rules requirements, narrative reporting obligations and governance code recommendations. He also provides advice on how boards can respond to the increasingly important ESG agenda, including cyber preparedness. Will spends a lot of his time delivering induction and update training to individual directors, boards, and senior management teams as well as general counsel and company secretaries.

Eleanor Reeves, Ashurst

Eleanor leads Ashurst's London Environment and Safety practice where she is noted for her ability to advise on the environmental aspects of transactions, including risk management and regulatory compliance concerns. She is particularly recognised for her ESG and sustainability work and is ranked as a leading individual in legal directories Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners.

Maria-Laure Knapp, Ashurst

Maria is a Director in the Ashurst Risk Advisory practice. She has 15+ years' experience in Ethics, Compliance and Sustainability. Maria-Laure leads the Ashurst Sustainability and Climate Change team for the UK market and supports clients with effective sustainability programme uplift and implementation, ESG Due Diligence, sustainable supply chains and net zero transition planning.

Becky Clissmann, Ashurst

Becky is Counsel at Ashurst, specialising in Sustainability and Climate Change and the transition to net zero. Becky has over 19 years' experience of climate change and ESG law and regulation from her roles in private practice and industry including as a Senior Editor in the environment team at Practical Law, Thomson Reuters. Becky also obtained extensive experience of climate change policy measures working for the Carbon Trust and as Managing Director of The Chancery Lane Project. Becky works closely with colleagues across the firm including our environment team advising on ESG regulation including sustainability reporting, supply chain due diligence and transition planning. She also regularly works with colleagues in our Risk Advisory practice to deliver integrated advice and tech solutions concerning ESG risk management across a range of sectors.

Tom Cummins, Ashurst

Tom is a Senior Counsel in our Dispute Resolution practice at Ashurst. Tom is a disputes lawyer who has represented clients in a range of matters in the energy, resources, infrastructure, and financial services sectors. A significant aspect of Tom's practice is advising on risk management issues, including ESG related risks such as climate liability, greenwashing, and business and human rights.

Ruby Hamid, Ashurst

Ruby leads Ashurst’s Global Investigations practice and co-heads the Global Corporate Crime team. She is a former prosecutor with a background in global investigations, corporate crime, compliance, and risk management. She has represented clients involved in more than ten SFO investigations, has negotiated settlements on behalf of prosecution agencies, regulators and clients, and regularly advises Boards on the mitigation of financial crime and compliance risk, and on good governance. She has particular expertise in regulated sectors: energy, financial services, telecoms and infrastructure, and frequently advises on modern slavery, ESG and supply chain risk management.

Ruby is recommended by all the major legal directories, and was one of Global Investigations Review’s 100 Women in Investigations. She sits on the board of the regulator for the UK barristers' profession.

Maureen Beresford, Financial Reporting Council

Maureen is the Financial Reporting Council’s Director of Corporate Governance and Stewardship. She was a civil servant for over 20 years, mostly within the different guises of the Department for Business Enterprise and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), her last position being Head of Company Law and Reporting. As part of that role she was responsible for a team who informed company law policy and supported Ministers on a number of legislative changes.

In 2017, Maureen moved on secondment to the Financial Reporting Council, working on the review of the UK Corporate Governance Code and then the introduction of the Wates Principles for Large Private Companies. In 2020, Maureen was appointed Head of Corporate Governance at the FRC.

Maureen has overseen the FRC’s annual reviews of Corporate Governance reporting, contracted research pieces and worked on AGM Guidance.

John Papadakis, Ashurst

John is Senior Counsel in the Incentives practice at Ashurst. John has a broad based employee incentives practice covering all forms of share-related and management incentive arrangements for public and private companies in the United Kingdom and globally. He has extensive experience in setting up tax-advantaged and non tax-advantaged incentive plans, and he advises on the related tax, trust, corporate and securities laws, and on UK corporate governance and institutional investor requirements.

Earlier in his career, John has been contributed to publications, including as primary author of UK Chapter on International Stock Plans: The Practitioner's Guide to Exporting Employee Equity, published on the website of the NASPP (National Association of Stock Plan Professionals), the leading membership association of stock plan professionals in the US. John has also spoken at the the 2013 and 2023 NASPP conferences on Global Roll-Out of Restricted Stock/RSUs and Global Stock Plan Tips.