Anna Byford

Anna is a Partner in the Employment department, and leads the Employment Innovate Practice, which provides the full spectrum of contentious and non-contentious employment, business immigration and incentives advice to fast-growth, scale-up businesses in the Innovation economy.

Anna is well versed in all stages of her clients' growth journeys and offers a unique perspective, having worked alongside some of the most well-known global institutions at Deloitte, and supported start-up, scale-up and small-medium sized enterprises at digital media and tech-focused legal boutique Kemp Little. Anna has also acted as an independent investigator for over a decade, and has particular experience in this area.

Anna supports her clients on a broad range of contentious and non-contentious employment law matters across the entire employment lifecycle – whether they are establishing themselves, scaling, entering a period of change or find themselves in dispute. From set-up and structure (contracts, policies, recruitment and talent models), ongoing compliance in a fast-paced legal landscape, retention and change management (M&A, TUPE transfers, outsourcing, collective redundancies), through to contentious exits, staff disputes (disciplinaries, grievances, investigations) and Employment Tribunal litigation. 

Anna is especially valued by her clients for her calm and empathetic  approach, and her ability to tackle complex and high pressure matters with a commercial, proportionate, and strategic eye. 

Key Experience

Investigations and conflict resolution

• Delivering fully outsourced investigation services of all workplace complaints across grievances, disciplinaries and speak-up cases for a Japanese-owned global investment bank, including designing an investigation portal to provide real-time data driven insights and reporting across all cases. Acting as lead- HR investigator for the market-leading and innovative approach to managing internal investigations
• Acting as the go-to advisor for a founder-led, independent audio-visual media agency, including day-to-day advisory support and advising on the exit of its Sales Director and co-founder
• Defending a hospital trust in the Employment Tribunal against claims of whistleblowing detriment, gender-based discrimination, equal pay, breach of contract, wrongful and unfair dismissal by a departing legal adviser

Advisory and employee relations

• Working with several app-based clients to determine the best staffing models for their businesses and implementing those strategies (from a fast growing start-up mobile beauty platform to an innovative app-based healthcare provider with over 7,000 staff nationwide – including moving all staff to app-based working and corresponding wholesale changes to employment terms and conditions)
• Supporting a staffing and recruitment company to restructure, redraft, simplify and globalise its commercial and staffing documentation for use across its business, and introduce adjusted staffing structures - driven in part by changes in the off-payroll working rules and in order to streamline the commercial contracting process. This was a creative and pioneering approach, and particularly complex by virtue of the highly regulated environment, employment status and tax implications, and ambition to move away from ‘legalese’ and use simplified, standard terms across jurisdictions
• Secondment into the employee relations team at a leading London-based insurance market to update and globalise its suite of policies, and acting as temporary in-house employment counsel for day-to-day HR issues, such as bonus and performance disputes, settlement negotiations, and supporting the business as it prepared for reorganisation

Workforce transformation

• Advising on the employment law and employee relations implications of the merger of two global insurance businesses and working closely with the legal and HR teams on the practical implementation, including setting up a new employee forum, and preparing for the TUPE transfer of 650+ staff and collective redundancy implications
• A number of secondments into an FS sector business to advise on, project manage and facilitate large scale TUPE transfers, both as a result of intra-group reorganisation and acquisition

Industry partnerships

• For a period, partnering with BIMA (the British interactive Media Association) to present regular employment law updates to its HR community of emerging and fast-growth media agencies and in-house brands

Career History

Partner, Mishcon de Reya LLP
Director, Deloitte Legal LLP
Associate Director, Deloitte Legal LLP
Senior Associate, Kemp Little LLP
Associate, Kemp Little LLP
Trainee solicitor, Faegre & Benson
University of Nottingham, Law with German