Pippa Blakemore BSc (Hons) PGCE Strategic Development Partner

Pippa, who is the Strategic Business Partner in The PEP Partnership LLP, is a leading expert in business development, marketing and sales for lawyers and barristers. She has worked for more than 45 UK and international law firms since setting up her consultancy business more than 20 years ago. She works at board level on an interim, project or ad hoc basis.

Pippa specializes in working in-house as an Interim Director, advising on all aspects of business development, marketing and sales. This ranges from creating the strategy at Board level to ensuring its implementation throughout the firm. She believes that a strategy has no value unless it produces objectively measurable results.

Pippa has worked and given presentations on all aspects of business development to lawyers, financiers and members of other organisations all over the world including United Kingdom , the United States , South America . New Zealand , Bulgaria, Germany, Poland , Czech Republic, Belgium, Holland , Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland , Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. She will be presenting to the International Bar Association at the annual conference in Buenos Aires in October 2008.

Outside the legal sector, Pippa has advised clients such as British Telecom, Save the Children, the London Stock Exchange, the Securities and Investments Board and a number of banks, such as J P Morgan, Shearson Lehman and Coutts & Co. She has also advised one of the top veterinary hospitals in the country.

Pippa was originally a Mathematician, graduated from the University of Bristol in Politics, where she also studied Philosophy and Economics and obtained a Post Graduate Certificate in Education in History. Pippa has had her research published in books and articles on sales and training for lawyers, European politics, European education, and on food and wine.

She is a Freeman of The Worshipful Company of Marketors, one of the City of London Livery companies.

She is also proud to be a Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers.

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Bill Blakemore LLB Msc European Government Partner

Bill has been a member of The PEP Partnership for twelve years, recently becoming full time in the team.  He is a barrister, with a law degree from Bristol University and a Masters degree in Business Management from City University . 

He practised at the bar for two years before deciding to combine his interests of sales, marketing and IT and his knowledge of law.

Bill joined the pioneering company Eurolex - an electronic legal information publisher - in the days when the legal profession preferred books and libraries and well before there was widespread understanding of computers and online information.

When Eurolex was bought by its competitor, LEXIS, Bill joined BT (British Telecom). There he concentrated on sales and marketing, covering a range of activities such as account management and bid management within the corporate and public sector markets. Bill spent a considerable amount of time in Europe, promoting BT within the European Community and promoting the interests and needs of Europe within BT and to BT's clients.

He developed extensive expertise on the EU and published 'Making it happen: BT's guide to unlocking EU Funding'. Bill enjoyed his work about Europe so much that he decided to leave BT and concentrate on this area specifically.

A typical project for Bill is to help a UK client identify a contract opportunity from the European Commission, and then work with the client to build a successful bid.  Bill has a very good understanding of how ' Brussels ' works, having worked on both sides of the bid equation. He has submitted tender responses and bids for funding, and he has worked for the Commission as an independent evaluator of bids seeking funding. 

Bill also knows where to go in the UK government to gain support for initiatives, having worked closely with UK central government departments such as the Home Office, the Department for Education & Skills, Department for Transport, the Office of the e-Envoy and the Office of Government Commerce. 

He is THE Programme Manager for the SPARKS Programme which was created by the London Enforcement Task Force, a pan-London grouping of organisations that co-ordinates traffic enforcement activities across the capital and includes Transport for London (TfL) and London Councils, as well as representatives from the Drivers and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and the Vehicle and Operations Services Agency (VOSA). The programme also maintains good relationships with a range of stakeholders including the British Parking Association and European licensing agencies.

The aims of the SPARKS Programme are to:

•  Increase significantly the number of overseas drivers who obey UK traffic laws relating to parking, bus lanes, moving traffic, the congestion charge, and other civil traffic laws that may be introduced in future across the UK;

•  Find and have implemented, legislative solutions to the data sharing and legal issues which currently impede cross border enforcement of civil traffic penalties against foreign registered vehicles;

•  Increase awareness of the issue of cross border enforcement in the UK parliament and the European Commission with a view to galvanising support behind legislative solutions;

•  Gather data and information from across the UK to build a coherent picture of the size of the problem;

•  Through our sister programme, EuroSPARKS, seek understanding of the legal issues surrounding the problem and potential solutions, on a pan-European basis; and

•  Collaborate and co-operate with foreign licensing agencies seeking common solutions.

If you would like to find out more about the SPARKS Programme please visit out website; www.sparksproject.org or alternatively contact Bill Blakemore, the Programme Manager on 0118 9631 3616.

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