36 Anna Buchly

New Entrant

Assuming the chair of one of the largest law firms in the country, Anna Buchly succeeded former chair Chris Gordon.

With 20 years’ legal experience in New Zealand, Australia and Dubai and working with Bell Gully as a corporate partner since 2008, she has been a board member for the past three years.

She has also been a graduate recruitment partner and one of the leaders of the firm’s international strategy.

Within Bell Gully she is seen as an inspiring leader, especially with junior female staff, having worked extensively to help the firm develop and mentor junior staff and long-regarded as a ‘go to’ people partner within a firm that has a long history of being something of an ‘old boys’ legal practice with his history reflecting the previously male-dominated law profession.

She also took the lead on considering the firm’s response and leading the action plan following the 2018 report, prepared for another law firm, by Dame Margaret Bazley.

At the beginning of 2019 she was also appointed to the Takeovers Panel, the government’s regulator of the corporate takeovers market.