About Peter Alfandary

I was educated at the French Lycée in London, received my BA in Law from The University of Kent at Canterbury in 1974 and my LLM from the London School of Economics in 1976.

I qualified as a Solicitor in London with Lovell White & King (now Hogan Lovells). I was then in-house Counsel in the automotive industry before becoming one of 4 co-founders of Warner Cranston, a firm which grew from 4 lawyers to 70 before eventually merging with Reed Smith which has over 1600 lawyers spread across 22 offices globally.

Throughout my career I have been highly active in the field of business development, at the strategic level, in winning and developing large client relationships and in training lawyers. I have taught extensively on the subject for many years.

As Dean of Reed Smith’s School of Business Development (a major part of the firm’s ground-breaking “Reed Smith University”), I had responsibility for setting the School’s curriculum and personally running numerous interactive workshops and courses for partners and associate lawyers in the US, the UK and other countries where the firm has offices.

As a result of my French education, I have also been actively involved over the years in spearheading my firms’ French Client departments, regularly advising numerous French corporations and Governmental organizations on their UK activities.

My background and experience over the past 30 years has led me to become passionate about cross cultural issues and their importance in building successful business and client relationships.  I now lecture regularly on cross-cultural awareness and on comparative business culture to professional firms and to multi-national corporations.

Throughout my career I have been fortunate to hold a number of senior roles including Managing Partner, Practice Group Leader and Client Development Partner. I continue to practice as a lawyer and serve as Deputy President of the French Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain and as Chair of its Intercultural Think Tank.

In 2003, I had the immense honour of being made Chevalier de la Légion d' Honneur by the French Republic.

In addition to being bi-lingual in French, I speak Italian. Apart from business development and cross cultural skills, my passions include opera, travel and my Citroen Deux Chevaux.