Edward Smith
General Counsel, Telefónica UK
Ed trained at Pinsents and qualified into the corporate team in 1997. In 1999 he joined Freshfields and spent two years working on large transactions and many smaller VC deals also. He moved to BT Cellnet (now Telefonica UK, operating the O2 brand) in 2001 just prior to its demerger from BT plc, and he’s been there ever since, becoming General Counsel in 2011. In his time with O2 Ed has been involved in a number of memorable deals, not least the deal with Apple which saw O2 introduce the iPhone to the UK and secure two years of exclusivity in 2007, and the original network sharing deal with Vodafone.
In 2013 Ed’s team picked up the Legal Business In House Team of the Year Award.