Alastair Young
Principal Consultant
Alastair is an executive coach focusing on the subject of leadership, in particular resilient leadership, and the creation and leadership of high performing teams. He has extensive leadership experience in multi-cultural and multi-geographical locations.
AboutÜber Alastair
Alastair’s started his career in the British Army in 1987 where he served for nine years as an infantry officer including tours in Norway and Northern Ireland. On leaving the army in 1995 he qualified as a barrister where he practiced as a member of the Independent Bar for eleven years specialising initially in criminal law and latterly commercial law.
Alastair has held a number of senior management positions including membership of the Dentons’ Executive Committee, its Board, Managing Partner of the Dentons’ Milton Keynes and Dubai offices as well as head of the Dentons’ Middle East dispute resolution team.
His most recent role was as Regional Managing Partner of the Dentons’ Middle East business. In this role, Alastair was responsible for the leadership and management of the Middle East business across nine offices and seven countries whilst interacting with the Firm’s leadership at an LLP and Global level. He handled both the design and delivery of the middle east business’s strategy and the delivery of both the annual budgeted revenue and profit, in addition to the management and leadership of all the legal and business support professionals employed across the nine offices.
Alastair is aware of and adept at navigating cultural perspectives. In international companies he finds solutions and prepares the groundwork to allow cultural differences to be understood and built into any solution. He has considerable experience in building and nurturing high performance teams and in particular bringing talent through to leadership roles.
ExperienceBerufserfahrung
- Undertook a project to restructure and lead the Dentons’ Dubai Office which at that time was significantly underperforming and had done so for several years. By focusing on the key practice areas in the office, integrating the office more fully and effectively into the wider Middle East and global network, the Dubai Office delivered markedly improved financial results within 18 months and was the highest performing office in the Region within three years.
- Designed and implemented the strategy to see the Dentons’ Middle East business through the Covid pandemic. This strategy, different to the wider Firm strategy, involved a remote working and voluntary risk sharing arrangement with employees across all nine offices. Over ninety five percent of the employees elected to participate and it was highly successful in terms of employee engagement, consequent engagement with clients and ultimately the business’s financial performance, which was very significantly above the average for the Firm during the pandemic.
Education and qualifications
- Meyler Campbell Mastered programme - 2024
- Member of the Dentons’ Audit Committee - 2018 to 2020
- Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators - 2019
- Member of the Board at Apperio - 2015
- Qualification as a Solicitor - 2007
- Member of the Board at St Philips Chambers - 2000
- Called to Bar of England and Wales - 1996
- Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst - 1987