Both sides of the table.
I’ve been the product counsel building AI in regulated healthcare, and the committee member assessing whether someone else’s AI is safe to deploy. That combination is the edge.
My career started in maritime crisis law in Far North Queensland: shipowner liability, P&I Club negotiations, a bulk carrier drifting toward the Great Barrier Reef. When the stakes are a coral reef, a tanker, or a human life, you learn that governance is how the system works under pressure, not what the manual says.
That instinct carried through every role since: building legal functions from zero at a fintech startup during international expansion, restructuring operations as Head of Legal and Company Secretary for a marine services group, and partnering with AI, Innovation, and Technology teams as AI product counsel at a global pharma services company on NASDAQ.
Five years assessing third-party AI on enterprise committees. Guiding six award-winning AI products built in regulated healthcare. A seat on the Microsoft national large-enterprise AI Champions Steering Committee. A PhD on the ethics of negotiations. A SANS GIAC cybersecurity credential. And an Ireland base that is English-speaking, common-law, EU, and dense with pharma, medtech and tech multinationals.
The pattern: I stepped in when things were unstructured, and left them with systems that ran without me. Now I work at the intersection of AI trust, risk judgment, and regulated deployment, where the question is not “is this compliant?” but “is this actually safe to sail?”