Brabners has appointed corporate partner Ruth Hargreaves as head of corporate, following a year in which the team advised on more than £762m worth of transactions. She succeeds Mark Rathbone and will lead the firm’s 76-strong corporate team as it continues to expand its sector-led offering and national presence.
The appointment comes after a strong period of growth for the team, with transaction values rising from £465.1m in the previous 12 months to £762.3m between May 2025 and April 2026. Brabners has also reported wider momentum across the business, including plans to open a new London office and achieving an eighth consecutive year of profitable growth.
Hargreaves trained at Brabners before moving in-house at TomTom as senior legal counsel. She returned to the firm in 2017 as a senior associate and has since been promoted to partner. The corporate team has continued to invest in specialist expertise across private equity, technology, sport and tax, with recent hires including tax partner Euri Yoon and corporate partner Stuart Hatcher.
Hargreaves said: ‘It’s a privilege to take on the role of head of corporate at such an exciting point in the team’s development.’ She added that there remained ‘a clear appetite among ambitious businesses and investors to pursue the right opportunities’. Nik White, managing partner at Brabners, described the appointment as ‘a landmark moment for Brabners and our corporate team’, adding that Hargreaves ‘embodies the culture and ambition of the firm’.
