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Manufacturing businesses are scaling fast - winning bigger OEM contracts, absorbing TUPE transfers when they take on new work, and renegotiating with an increasingly volatile supplier base. Every one of those decisions carries legal exposure that most leaders don’t see until it becomes a problem.
In 2024, YouGov found that UK SMEs lost £13.6 billion to legal issues not being addressed. For manufacturers, that risk concentrates in a handful of places: onerous liability and consequential-loss clauses buried in OEM tenders, KPIs that bake in exposure for years, late payment from large customers, and people issues that escalate without the right legal lens on them.
These risks rarely look dramatic. They’re buried in the everyday: a tender signed at pace, a supplier assessment that never happened, a TUPE process rushed to hit a go-live date, an onerous KPI no one pushed back on.
On this webinar, we’ll be joined by Paul Brown, the Financial Director at Rudolph & Hellmann Automotive, and Rachel Webb Wiles, the Fractional General Counsel he hired as the business doubled in size on the back of a landmark automotive tender.
We’ll reveal what Paul discovered they were doing well, where the blind spots were, and the first fixes that reduced exposure, without adding complexity or slowing the business down.
Meet the Speakers
Paul Brown is a hands-on, solutions-focused Financial Director and Company Secretary at R&HA. He sees his role as providing robust financial oversight to support the business on a day-to-day basis, while also being actively involved in new contract acquisitions. Paul focuses on delivering innovative, commercially sound solutions that make the company’s propositions both practical and attractive.
Rachel Webb Wiles is a Fractional General Counsel with The Legal Director (TLD), providing flexible, senior in-house legal support to ambitious, high-growth businesses. She partners with companies that are not yet ready to hire a full legal team, acting as their primary legal advisor and working closely with senior management. Rachel also supports overstretched General Counsels or delivers expertise for strategic projects, and works seamlessly as an extension of existing legal teams seeking innovative ways to access legal services.
Sarah Clark is a seasoned legal and business leader with extensive experience driving transformation, governance, and growth across regulated industries. Currently Chief Executive Officer at The Legal Director, she has held senior roles including Group Legal Director at First Central and General Counsel at DF Capital. A former criminal barrister and accredited mediator, Sarah is recognised for her expertise in strategic risk management, ESG, and ethical leadership. Named an inaugural O-Lister 2024 by O Shaped Lawyer, she combines legal insight with commercial acumen to help organisations scale effectively and navigate complex regulatory landscapes.