Haynes and Boone, LLP Associates Emily Fuller and Mitchell Heyland were selected as 2020 Rising Stars by the Fund Finance Association (FFA).
FFA’s annual Rising Stars award recognizes young professionals who are paving the way for the future of Fund Finance. The honorees were selected based on their outstanding overall contributions to the Fund Finance industry, their firms and their clients, with an emphasis on excellence in client service, product and service innovations, diversity and community service, among other factors.
The award recipients were featured in a Q&A about their careers and community involvement. Here is an excerpt:
Emily Fuller
Emily Fuller is an associate in the Finance Practice Group in the London office of Haynes and Boone. Emily acts on a full range of finance transactions, with a particular focus on fund finance, including syndicated and bilateral leveraged/NAV facilities, SMA deals, hybrid facilities, GP support lines and capital call facilities. Emily has experience in the formation of closed-ended and open-ended offshore fund structures and prior to joining Haynes and Boone undertook a secondment at a real estate fund. Emily's practice focuses on acting for bank and non-bank lenders and a variety of sponsors (including corporate and non-corporate private equity funds, hedge funds, infrastructure funds, real estate funds, secondary funds, credit funds and sovereign wealth funds). Emily also holds the CISI Certificate in Islamic Finance. Emily sits on the Women in Fund Finance European committee and the Fund Finance NextGen European committee.
Q: What started your career in fund finance?
A. I come from Guernsey originally, which is a fund jurisdiction, so even my temp summer jobs as a teenager used to be filing or answering the phones etc. at an asset manager or bank, so there was no escape! My training contract was heavily funds focused, including fund litigation, fund M&A, fund formation and fund finance. I enjoy the transactional side of finance, so fund finance was a good fit for me and I've since been lucky enough to work for some of the leaders in the industry.
Q: How have you contributed to the development of others?
A: I'm involved in the trainee recruitment process at Haynes and Boone and often attend law fairs to speak to students about what the firm does and answer questions about what a trainee can expect to gain from training with us. I also assist with putting together training material for more junior members of the team and help supervise junior associates and trainees in our team. I also encourage others to take part in all the NextGen events, including the newly launched mentoring scheme! Outside of work I mentor a student who will be undertaking her Graduate Diploma in Law next year through the GROW MENTORING scheme.
Mitchell Heyland
Mitchell Heyland is an associate in the Finance Practice Group in the Dallas office of Haynes and Boone. His practice focuses mainly on the representation of financial institutions in bilateral and syndicated subscription financings, but he also has experience representing lenders, private equity firms and commercial borrowers in a range of commercial lending transactions, including acquisition financings, commodities finance transactions, mortgage warehouse financings, margin loan facilities and real estate secured facilities. Mitchell graduated with an undergraduate degree in business management from the University of Lethbridge and then had the opportunity to attend law school at the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated magna cum laude and with a Wharton Certificate in Management.
Q: What started your career in fund finance?
Haynes and Boone is one of the pioneers and market leading law firms in the Fund Finance industry. There are numerous opportunities for associates to get involved in a variety of fund financings with different lenders and sponsors. Once I showed an interest in Fund Finance, I was staffed on more transactions by some great partners and they mentored me and provided opportunities for me to learn about and develop expertise in the Fund Finance industry.
Q: Tell us about your community involvement:
Through involvement in my local church community I have been able to participate in a variety of volunteer activities and charitable events. I have held various positions in my congregation over the past few years including teaching weekly Sunday school classes for children and organizing a ministering program with the goal of having all members of the congregation receive monthly visits to share uplifting messages and assist in their temporal and spiritual wellbeing.
To read more about the honorees, click here.