Clifford Chance announces that Mike Kachel and Micol Scabbia have been appointed global co-heads of Client & Market Development (CMD) and will join the firm's Executive Operations Group. Kachel and Scabbia, based in New York and Milan, respectively, had been leading the worldwide CMD function on an acting basis since the retirement of Lynette Williams in August 2020, while continuing to lead their regional CMD teams in the Americas and Continental Europe.
Prior to joining the Firm's Americas region in 2008, Kachel held progressively larger marketing communications leadership roles at different Fortune 500 companies, including four GE businesses, Genworth Financial and Marsh McLennan. Scabbia joined the Firm in 2003 after beginning her career in marketing communications at global consulting firms Cohn & Wolfe, Andersen and Deloitte. During her nearly two decades at Clifford Chance she has held various leadership roles, including serving as the firm's Italy general manager for six years.
"During the past year, Micol and Mike helped us gain additional insights into our most important client relationships" said Matthew Layton, Clifford Chance's global managing partner. "In addition to being proven marketing and business development leaders, they're strong advisors to the business who have been instrumental to the development of our successful European and Americas strategies. Micol and Mike are well known to our partners and senior CMD colleagues across the firm and widely respected for delivering guidance that has benefited a large percentage of our global network."
Clifford Chance's Client & Market Development function is responsible for a broad range of strategic business development-focused activities, including global key account programs working alongside client relationship partners, proposal development, client and matter reviews, sector focus and the firm's client relationship and credentials data management. The CMD team is also responsible for the firm's annual legal directory submissions, where Clifford Chance secured more global-wide Chambers Global 2021 Band 1 rankings than any other firm.
The regional leadership roles being vacated by Kachel's and Scabbia's promotions are expected to be filled before year-end.