John Podgore joins Addleshaw Goddard

John Podgore, a recognised expert in international oil & gas transactions and energy-focused projects, is the latest partner to join AG’s burgeoning global Construction, Energy and Infrastructure (CEI) practice, one of the firm’s key investment priorities. Podgore, who will be based in AG’s Dubai office, was most recently general counsel at the MENA Energy Group, prior to that he spent over fifteen years in private practice, ten of those as a partner in Dubai.

Podgore, who is fluent in Arabic, Russian and French has over the last five years become increasingly involved in Africa energy and infrastructure transactions, which reflects Dubai’s growing role in respect of the genesis and execution of African business transactions. His appointment to the firm’s corporate & commercial division follows a number of partner appointments in the CEI space. In November; Chau Ee Lee, an expert in contentious and non-contentious construction projects joined the Singapore office; in September Hong Kong-based Vivien Yang, a recognised M&A expert in the oil and gas, LNG and infrastructure sectors, joined from Simmons & Simmons. Earlier this year Ton van Den Bosch joined AG’s Singapore practice from Ince & Co where he headed its Energy and Projects team and Aberdeen-based oil and gas specialist David McEwing joined from Pinsents.

John Podgore commented, “I am thrilled to be joining AG’s global CEI practice, to be part of a focused, ambitious and expanding GCC team that is gaining significant traction and momentum. AG’s ambition to assemble by 2021 one of the strongest global CEI practices in the market is really gathering momentum and this was a major incentive for me joining.  I have served clients that have included state owned companies, listed companies, and private companies across several jurisdictions including the GCC, Africa, Central Asia and Europe and I believe that AG’s vision and ambition to continue to work on international mandates of significance and scale is very enticing and I am delighted to be part of the team.”