Lauren Sharp

Lauren has over ten years of experience in building collaborative partnerships, advising on a range of successful partnership transactions and deals. Lauren’s professional experience covers multiple industries and geographies. This includes the early deal phases of developing a partnering growth strategy and structuring a deal, executing the transaction, and conducting performance reviews of more mature partnerships to diagnose and resolve issues. Prior to joining Ankura, Lauren worked in investment banking and consulting, with a focus on maximizing value for her clients. 

Lauren’s professional experience includes:

• Engagement lead for the creation of a partner influencing plan for a non-operated JV in Brazil. Lauren worked with the client team to develop a partner influencing plan to improve their level of input and control on several specific, high-priority areas, with the identification of key focus areas, supporting activities, accountabilities, influencing tactics, and delivery milestones. 
• Engagement lead for creation of “Playbook” for non-operated JVs in the Americas for a global mining client. Lauren created a comprehensive Playbook outlining the roles, responsibilities, and delegations of authority across various client processes, including risk management, governance, financial and operational planning, and health & safety, to be used by the client’s non-operated JV teams. 
• Engagement lead for creation of new partnership for a European consumer company. Lauren conducted a “deal check” on a proposed new JV between two regional competitors, reviewing the proposed commercial terms to identify potential issues (and mitigations), and recommending best-practice governance structures for pre- and post-separation of the relevant business entities. 
• Deal lead for creation of technology-enabled indoor farming partnership for a UK PLC, a Netherlands-based private company, and a U.S.-based start-up. Lauren designed the UK PLC’s prioritization framework for assessing its strategic options, including the development of partner selection criteria and business / collaborative structure, facilitated negotiations, developed the deal structure, drafted commercial terms with Legal, and coordinated the deal process across all parties. 
• Delivery lead for a new cybersecurity JV between large U.S. defense company and Middle Eastern oil company. Lauren drafted the JV business plan, including revenue and cost analysis, coordinated JV deal activities during the design phase, including facilitation of cross-team workshops, diplomatic relationship-building, and people management. 
• Project delivery lead for the carve-out of a French business entity. Lauren led the procurement, sales, customer services, and manufacturing work streams to deliver the carve-out, including the running of workshops (internally and with the buyer), developing and tracking the separation plan, and managing stakeholders. 
• Advisor to UK PLC on the creation of a global JV. Lauren assessed potential partners across different geographies, compared deal structure options, and developed a partner engagement plan in support of the negotiation strategy. 
• Advisor to UK PLC on the reset of an underperforming JV in Europe. Lauren developed and implemented an effective turnaround plan returning the business to profitability, which included the development of processes and tools for capability building, new governance frameworks, and drafting commercial terms for new legal agreements.