Background & experience
NWS Legal is run by Nick Wenban-Smith who has over 20 years’ experience and three senior in-house roles across biotech, financial services and internet infrastructure.
A career inside businesses
Nick read chemistry at Christ’s College, Cambridge, before turning to law. That grounding gives him a connection to the subject matter and working culture of science-led businesses, alongside his legal experience.
Being Director of Legal Services at PowderJect Pharmaceuticals, a spin-out from Oxford University, built the foundations for supporting companies whose commercial decisions are closely linked to research, innovation and intellectual property.
Nick served as General Counsel on the board of Huntswood, a Financial Services outsourcing provider. Negotiating contracts with large banking groups, dealing with legal issues around HR and day-to-day commercial advice
Nick spent over 15 years at Nominet, the .UK domain name registry, including as General Counsel and Head of Stakeholder Relations. His work included oversight of the .UK Dispute Resolution Service and internet governance
Nick has been involved in shaping internet policy through a number of ICANN working groups and supporting organisations. Most recently he has been the Vice Chair of the Policy Development Process for DNS abuse and he also spent 6 years as a Councillor for the ccNSO and Chaired the ccNSO DNS abuse committee.