Clara Segurola joins Augusta in its London office

Professional services firm Augusta has installed Clara Segurola as its new Lead Economist. Working from the specialist consultancy’s London office, Segurola arrives from NERA Economic Consulting, where she was Associate Director.

Commenting on her new role, Segurola said, “I am very pleased to be joining Augusta Ventures. I’ve been impressed with Augusta’s reputation in the market and their forward-thinking approach to innovation. I look forward to making a significant impact and to helping law firms and their clients gain access to funding in the most efficient way.”

Established in 2013, Augusta is the largest litigation and dispute funding institution in the UK by its number of cases, and holds £245 million in capital. The firm has offices in London, Sydney, Melbourne and Toronto, and Segurola arrives to take up her role in Augusta’s recently incepted Investment Valuation and Structuring (IVS) team. The London based team is headed up by Matt Pitchers, who joined following a 12-year stint with Deloitte late in 2019.A financial economist with more than 15 years of professional experience, Segurola joins from NERA Economic Consulting, where she specialised in the assessment and quantification of damages in international disputes, and latterly held the role of Associate Director. As Lead Economist at Augusta, she will now apply her know-how to develop analytical and valuation capabilities for the firm.

Louis Young, Managing Director of Augusta, remarked, “Clara and her skill set are a key addition to the IVS team… as we respond to demands from our law firm clients who are looking for deeper expertise and support from their funder. The services of this team are available at no cost to our law firm partners, and it makes the task of structuring finance solutions for their claims a much more collaborative process.”

Augusta has been looking to increase its UK capabilities with a number of hires over the last year. On top of the previously mentioned arrival of Pitchers, this also included the additions to its senior team of Proskauer Director Polly Bahl as COO, FTI Consulting Managing Director Leor Franks as CMO and Ardonagh Group’s Chief Counsel Frances Coats as General Counsel, reflecting Augusta’s on-going growth and increasing client demand for dispute and litigation funding.

As many companies struggle to overcome problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Augusta was also recently became part of a non-exclusive project to support them. Alongside HFW and KPMG, the firm agreed to assist companies with the arbitration, legal assistance and asset-tracing efforts of organisations embroiled in Covid-19 legal disputes.