Tony Wales was appointed as General Counsel of AOL International in June 2007, responsible for the company’s worldwide legal affairs outside the United States. During this time he has been instrumental in the launch of new businesses in 31 territories, including China, India, Japan and Australia.
From 2002 to 2007 he was General Counsel of AOL Europe and played a central role in the development and management of AOL’s pan-European business. He led the negotiations for the sale of AOL’s ISP businesses in the UK, France and Germany in 2006-07. Before joining AOL, Tony was General Counsel at The Economist Group for seven years where he set up the in-house legal function and managed a large number of acquisitions and business expansion projects.
Tony is a law graduate from Worcester College, University of Oxford, qualified as a UK solicitor in 1981 and has worked extensively overseas, including the Unites States, Hong Kong (where he spent six years in the late 1980s) and Central Europe (where he was responsible for an office in Prague in the early 1990s). He has been a champion of the in-house legal profession and was the President of the Association of Corporate Council in Europe from 2007 to 2008.
At the OII Tony will look at socio-legal and regulatory issues arising from the Digital Britain report published by the UK Government in June 2009.
Law.
