Emilia Smith (née Emilia Valvano) is a commercial solicitor at Harper James. She specialises in commercial transactions, particularly in commercial contract negotiation and SaaS products.
Emilia trained at SJ Berwin, which was a silver circle City firm specialising in private equity transactions. She moved to Reed Smith upon qualification as part of a team move, where she spent 3 years working on a range of corporate transactions. Emilia then moved to work in-house as legal counsel for Eurostar, where she worked for just over a year. During this time, she advised the company on a wide range of general day-to-day commercial issues.
Emilia has significant previous experience in the following sectors:
- Technology, including software (in particular SaaS), apps, digital infrastructure and digital commerce
- Creative industries, including media, entertainment & publishing, as well as advertising & marketing
- Energy, utilities and environment, including solar, wind and renewable energy
- Retail and luxury brands, particularly consumer goods
- Manufacturing, particularly in the automotive and transport areas
- Hospitality, travel and leisure
What do you do away from work/outside the office?
I love fitness and the great outdoors, so I try to do as many activities which combine these two things as often as possible – firm favourites are hiking and skiing. I am also a qualified yoga instructor, so I spend some of my spare time teaching. Any other spare time I have left is spent with friends and family or travelling.
